Chapter Nine: 42

Disclaimer: I do not own Psych or Doctor Who.

It was several weeks later that Gus had an inspiration about how to complete his route two hours shorter (always a plus as he never knew when Shawn would need him). He wasn't sure when he'd be home again and he and Shawn had agreed that just stopping by Santa Barbara might give the Doctor bad ideas about leaving them there. He didn't want to forget his brilliant time-saver, though, so the Doctor fiddled around with first his cell phone and then Shawn's – who didn't want to be left out – to give them universal roaming.

Gus immediately called his parents since he hadn't spoken to them in months and Shawn promptly called Juliet. Well, at least Henry wouldn't know that he was being neglected if the Doctor managed to get them back in a timely manner.

Suddenly, the TARDIS started shaking violently.

"Sorry, Jules, I've got to go," Shawn said apologetically. "I think we're going to crash. Not to worry, though, I'll be fine. Probably. If you'd like to send me a get-well-soon pineapple in advance, that'd be great."

"We're not crashing, Shawn," the Doctor told him. "We're getting a distress signal."

"And this distress signal needs to be so violent because…?" Shawn prompted.

"Well, it gets your attention, doesn't it?" the Doctor asked rhetorically. "I like bumpy rides better, anyway and the only other option was an alarm of some sort and I hate alarms. They're always going off. I should get them disabled…"

Gus stared at him. "But aren't they usually going off for a reason?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Probably. If it's really that important than I'll figure it out soon enough."

Still, Gus wasn't quite ready to let it go. "And if you don't?"

"Then I'll get myself killed," the Doctor said blithely. "But that almost never happens."

"Can we at least keep the upgraded phones when we eventually leave?" Shawn asked, breaking his and Gus' rule about not reminding the Doctor they'd leave at some points in case it gave him ideas in order to see about never having to pay a phone bill again.

The Doctor tilted his head, considering. "You'd probably kill me if I didn't let you keep at least something and you can't do much damage with these so why not?"

"Sweet!" Shawn cheered.

"So…" Gus trailed off expectantly. "About that distress signal?"

The Doctor nodded. "Oh, right. We should go check that out."

"You don't really sound like you're in a hurry," Gus pointed out.

The Doctor pointed to the TARDIS console. "Time machine. I could go take a nap and still make it in time to help these people."

"I could use a swim myse-" Shawn started to say.

Gus glared at him. "No. We can't just leave these things to chance and risk showing up too late to help them!"

"If that's what you want," the Doctor said indifferently before running around and pressing a bunch of buttons and pulling some levers. The TARDIS rumbled around again, this time in the more familiar 'we're actually going somewhere' way. "And…here we are!"

"We have to go save somebody in a sauna?" Shawn asked, wincing at the sudden heat wave after the TARDIS doors sprang open. "I can get behind that. Unless there's a killer hiding in the mist, of course. Or if I cook. While I'm sure that I would taste amazing, I'm really against that plan."

"Let's go," the Doctor suggested as he stepped out of the ship, Gus and Shawn following closely behind him. "You know what they say, 'if you can't stand the heat then you should probably move.'" He walked through a door marked 'Area 30.' "Well, that's better…"

Suddenly, three people ran straight at them.

"It is far too hot to be running," Shawn said, wincing in sympathy.

"Oi, you two! What are you doing here?" one of the men demanded.

"Seal the door!" the woman ordered.

The two men quickly shut the door behind Shawn and Gus.

"Who are you and what are you doing on my ship?" the woman demanded.

"I'm Shawn Spencer and this is my partner, Don West," Shawn introduced.

"And I'm the Doctor," the Doctor announced. "What seems to be the problem?"

"Are you police?" the man who had spoken earlier blurted out.

"Why would we be police?" the Doctor asked blankly. "We just got your distress signal."

"Then where's your ship?" the woman challenged.

"Out there," the Doctor said, gesturing vaguely towards the direction they'd just come from.

"It's a small ship," Gus clarified.

"Speaking of ships, why doesn't yours have any engines?" the Doctor inquired.

"Because they went dead four minutes ago," the woman said matter-of-factly. "I must say, you have phenomenal response time."

"See?" Gus asked smugly. "She said 'phenomenal response time.'"

The Doctor turned so that the three strangers couldn't see his face. "Time machine," he mouthed.

"Maybe we should stop chatting and get to engineering," the quiet man spoke up, sounding impatient.

"Secure closure active," a computerized voice announced.

The captain's eyes bulged. "What? Who ordered that?"

"The ship has gone mad," the second man declared, reflexively crossing himself.

A woman ran towards them, the doors slamming shut just behind her. "Who did that?" she asked angrily. "I almost got sealed into area 27!"

"Impact projection: 42 minutes," the computer announced.

"Impact into what?" Gus asked suspiciously.

"The sun," Shawn said, looking out the window. He groaned. "Way to go, Gus. You've landed us in '2001: A Space Odyssey.'"

Including Shawn, Gus, and the Doctor there were ten people aboard Captain McDonnell's ship. The Doctor had attempted to get to the TARDIS and to just abandon ship altogether since there were so few people and they could easily fit in the TARDIS control room but the TARDIS was sealed in a room too hot to be able to go in. One of the crewmembers, Riley, kept insisting that it had been destroyed.

"And I keep telling you, the fact that we all still exist is a pretty good sign that my TARDIS hasn't been destroyed," the Doctor said, exasperated.

"Look, I don't know who you are or why you seem to think that your ship being destroyed will cause all life to fade away or whatever but-" Riley started to say.

"I don't just think that, I know that," the Doctor corrected. "And that's a good thing…as long as she stays non-destroyed. She's tough, though, so I think she should make it. Since we know that it's still around we can eventually get to it if we can fix the heat."

"We're going to need to get away from the sun in order to get the temperature anywhere approaching habitable," Riley told them. "It's getting hotter by the moment."

"That settles it," the Doctor said, clapping his hands together. "We're just going to have to fix the ship. To engineering!"

With that, he began to run down the hallway. The others chased after him and quickly saw that a section of the ship had been sabotaged and learned that two crewmembers were missing.

"Lovely! We're in the Torajji system," the Doctor said cheerfully, more pleased to know where they were than about the fact that they were in this particular system. "You know, that's half a universe away from Earth."

"So what you're saying is that no one will ever find my corpse," Gus translated.

"You know I hate calling you a Gloomy Gus but between your name and your continued insistence that we're going to die, you really don't make it easy," Shawn told him flatly.

"And, you're still using energy scoops for fusion? Hasn't that been outlawed yet?" the Doctor asked, puzzled.

Shawn didn't miss the guilty looks the crew exchanged but McDonnell herself remained cool. "We're due to upgrade next docking. Scannell, engine report."

"They're burned out," Scannell said grimly. "I can't get them back online."

"What about the auxiliary engines? Every craft has auxiliary engines," the Doctor suggested.

"We don't have access from here. The auxiliary controls are in the front of the ship," McDonnell replied.

"Yeah, with 29 password sealed doors between us and them. You'll never get there in time," Scannell said dismissively.

"Right, we're not sending you to do it then," the Doctor said, rolling his eyes. "Who's got the door passwords?"

"I think I know most of them," Riley spoke up. "They're randomly generated, though, and it's a two-person job."

"I'll go," Shawn volunteered, surprising everyone. "You coming, Gus?"

Gus nodded. "Yeah." He took out his cell phone and handed it to the Doctor. "Best take this so we can stay in touch. Let us know if anything happens."

"Finally, we're alone," Shawn said, sounding relieved as he watched Riley opening the first door. "I've been meaning to talk to you."

"Talk to me?" Riley asked, blinking in confusion.

Shawn nodded his head. "Absolutely. Look, I didn't want to say anything in front of everyone but Gus, the Doctor, and I? We really are cops. Undercover, of course, and we don't want to alarm everyone."

"Then why tell me?" Riley asked, bewildered.

"Because I like you, Riley, and I think I can trust you," Shawn said seriously. "I know that right now our immediate priority is to stop this ship from hurtling into the sun in a little over half an hour but that doesn't mean we can just ignore the deeper question."

"Deeper question?" Riley repeated.

Gus nodded. "Yes, deeper question. Why, for instance, the computer has decided to try to kill you."

"I just got a text from the Doctor telling me that they found Ashton and Korwin," Shawn declared.

Riley's eyes lit up. "They did? That's wonderful!"

"It might be," Shawn said noncommittally. "Ashton's fine but Korwin's burning up, some sort of infection. You asked if we were police earlier. While we are at that, why was that the first thing you thought of? We are undercover operatives, after all. And you looked guilty earlier. What, exactly, did you do?"

Riley looked uncomfortable. "I don't-"

"Riley, I know that you don't want to get in trouble. You seem like a decent guy and this whole thing is probably just a big mistake, I understand that. I'm not here to get you in trouble, I'm here to get you out of trouble," Shawn promised. "But I can't help unless you tell me what's wrong. What did you do that you think you might get in trouble for and that might have something to do with Korwin's infection? His life may depend on your cooperation."

Riley gulped. "I…I'm not sure if this means anything but…"

"Yes?" Gus prompted gently.

"You should also be aware that whatever this infection is caused Korwin to sabotage the ship and melt the controls," Shawn added. "If we don't know what this is, we can't fight it and it might spread."

Riley nodded, looking shaken. "Right. Look, we didn't really mean anything by it. It's just that we drew matter from the sun to use as fuel a little before this whole mess started. It might have been infected, I don't know, we didn't have time to scan. It's illegal to use energy scoops but we didn't have much choice! We were running low on fuel and…but I don't see how this could have infected Korwin."

He opened the door.

Shawn tossed Gus his phone. "Call the Doctor, let him know about this," he instructed.

Gus nodded. "Right." He dialed his own phone.

"Bit busy right now," the Doctor said distractedly.

"We got Riley to confess that they scooped fuel from the sun without scanning it right before the trouble started," Gus said without preamble. "We think that might have something to do with it."

"Without scanning?" the Doctor practically choked. "That's…that's so bloody irresponsible! Who knows what they could have brought onboard the ship?"

Gus heard a female voice saying something indecipherable.

"I don't care that it was illegal and the fine's really large," the Doctor snapped. "It's not like there were any witnesses! You had time!"

"Doctor," Gus said, reminding the Doctor that he was there. "So you think that the sun particles in the fuel is the reason why we're having problems?"

"Almost definitely," the Doctor confirmed. "It's just too big of a coincidence. If they don't have enough fuel reserves then I can take them in the TARDIS if I have to once we solve this."

The female voice said something else indistinctly.

"Yes we have to do this! We have no idea what you've brought aboard! At this point, we can't even rule out the star being alive and trying to reclaim the parts of it that you lost," the Doctor exclaimed. "And frankly, it's the best chance that your husband has."

"Have to do what?" Gus inquired.

"We can dump the contaminated fuel from here," the Doctor revealed. "But that won't be enough to save us even if I'm right and that's the problem. These engines are still dead and we're not making much progress fixing them so keep going to the auxiliary engines."

"Will do," Gus agreed before hanging up and going to rejoin Shawn and Riley.

He found them staring blankly at second door.

"What are you guys waiting for?" he asked impatiently. "We don't have time!"

"And you had the phone so we couldn't ask the Doctor about this insane problem," Shawn countered.

"Find the next number in the sequence: 313, 331, 367… what?" Riley said helpfully.

Gus was quiet for a moment, thinking. "379," he declared.

Shawn groaned. "Gus, why do you have to keep proving to me that you're a nerd at heart?"

"Because if I don't then we're going to fall into the sun," Gus said matter-of-factly.

"Hey, you're right," Riley said, surprised.

"Of course he is," Shawn muttered, considerably less so.

"Next category is classical music," Riley read off.

Shawn groaned while Gus flexed his fingers.

"Who had the most pre-download number ones, Elvis Pre-eh-sley or the Be-atles?" Riley asked, horribly mangling both names.

Shawn and Gus exchanged a glance before simultaneously swatting him over the head.

"Ow!" Riley complained. "What did I do?"

"You didn't know who the Beatles or Elvis Presley – pay attention to the pronunciation – were," Shawn said, unrepentantly.

"Fine though both of them are, they hardly count as classical music," Gus protested.

Shawn snorted. "Maybe not in the 21st century but clearly people from the…whatever century this is have better taste."

"Riley couldn't even pronounce them and any idiot can pronounce Beethoven and Mozart back home," Gus pointed out.

"That is because Riley is a philistine," Shawn said as if it were obvious.

"Hey!" Riley protested.

"Shawn, you think that Beethoven is a dog," Gus reminded him.

"A dog whose name I can pronounce," Shawn corrected him.

"Do you two know the answer or what?" Riley demanded. "We're kind of in a hurry."

"Elvis," Shawn said confidently.

"Are you sure?" Riley asked.

"I once spent a week living at a record store," Shawn explained. "Trust me, I'm sure."

Shawn's phone buzzed and Gus glanced down. "It's the Doctor. He said Korwin's fever is gone so it looks like the sun particles were what was causing the infection."

Shawn nodded Riley's way. "Good man. You just saved your fellow crewmember's life and perhaps the lives of everyone aboard this ship."

"Assuming that we don't all crash into the sun," Riley murmured.

"I thought that went without saying, really, but to each his own," Shawn replied.

"Does this mean you won't be arresting us?" Riley asked hopefully.

"As long as you properly upgrade the minute you get someplace that has the necessary equipment," Shawn said seriously.

Riley nodded earnestly. "Oh, absolutely! Thank you so much!"

"Our work isn't done yet, citizen," Shawn declared dramatically. " To the next door!"

"What is Riley's favorite color?" Riley asked. "Oh, that's an easy one. Aquamarine."

Shawn made a face. "Oh, how pretentious. Why can't you just say blue like a normal person?"

"Because it's not really blue," Riley protested. "It's a shade between green and blue, although further on the blue end of the spectrum. It-"

"We really don't care," Shawn cut him off.

"Fine," Riley sniffed, looking almost hurt. "Be that way. Door 25: What is the only word in the English language that has all five vowels in consecutive order?"

"Facetious," Gus answered.

"This isn't a spelling bee, Gus," Shawn told him.

Gus coughed. "I wasn't about to-"

"Whatever you say," Shawn said consolingly.

"Name the four Teletubbies," Riley read off, "by color."

"Oh, I've got this one!" Shawn exclaimed triumphantly. "And you said that watching that show was killing your childhood."

"It was!" Gus insisted. "The fact that this happens to also be saving our lives does not change that!"

"The purple one is Tinky-Winky, the green one is Dipsy, the yellow one is Laa-Laa, and the red one is – coincidentally, I'm sure – Po," Shawn informed them.

"For all that you make fun of me for the math and the spelling thing, it's really a wonder I haven't disowned you for watching that show," Gus said, shaking his head.

"Oh, please, Gus," Shawn scoffed. "You know that I'd manage to disown you first any day."

"Name the twelfth president of the United States," Riley told them.

"I'm going to go with Lincoln," Shawn guessed.

"Don't enter that!" Gus cried out. "Let's see…I saw that Animaniacs president song on Youtube not that long ago. 'Martin Van Buren, number eight for a one-term shot as chief of state. William Harrison, how do you praise, that guy was dead in thirty days. John Tyler he liked country folk and after him came President Polk. Zachary Taylor liked to smoke, his breath killed friends whenever he spoke.' It's Zachary Taylor."

"I know I have no room to talk as I haven't heard of any of those people," Riley began slowly, "but it seems like it would just be easier to remember them rather than remember a song about them."

"You'd think so," Gus agreed, "but it's not."

"What is the final line to Shakespeare's 'Love's Labour's Won'?" Riley asked.

"Oh, that you pronounce right," Shawn said contemptuously. "I have no idea. 'Leave without a fuss'?"

"No, that wasn't actually part of the play," Gus disagreed. "I can't believe you don't know this, Shawn! We saw the first performance!"

"And how invested would you say I was in the performance?" Shawn asked rhetorically.

Gus sighed. " 'Behold the swainish sight of woman's love. Pish! It's out of season to be heavy disposed,'" he quoted.

"Blank is not a single fruit but a cluster of up to two hundred fruitlets," Riley read off.

Shawn smirked. "Oh, that's easy. Pineapples."

"What are 'the shadows that melt the flesh'?" Riley asked.

"I've got nothing," Shawn admitted. "Gus?"

Gus called the Doctor again.

"Still no luck," the Doctor told him. "How is it going on your end?"

"We're on question 20, I think," Gus reported. "Do you have any idea what 'the shadows that melt the flesh' are?"

"Vashta Nerada," the Doctor informed him.

"Vashta Nerada," Gus called out.

"Nasty creatures, the Vashta Nerada," the Doctor said conversationally. "They live in darkness and will eat your flesh. If you ever get two shadows then it's already too late."

"The only psychopath to kill you kindly," Riley read off.

"Waldo," Shawn said immediately.

"Shawn, Waldo is not a serial killer!" Gus cried out. "Honestly!"

"This bears explanation," the Doctor said, intrigued.

"You want to explain that?" Riley asked at the same time.

"What's to explain?" Shawn asked innocently. "Waldo starts off in Santa's workshop, a là Elf, and one days he grows to be too big to be able to maneuver comfortably about the workshop. UNLIKE Elf, however, Waldo had no father in New York and thus had no choice but to stay at Santa's workshop. Eventually, though, he hit his head on the ceiling one too many times and picked up a pick-axe…"

"What? What?" Riley asked, anxiously.

Shawn sighed sadly. "You can imagine what happened next. Santa tried to restrain him, but he quickly outgrew all of the elf-sized restraining systems. He had nothing better to do, so he figured he might as well go to New York anyway. Everything was fine there until this little girl made fun of his hat. Because, you know, it IS as stupid hat. And so he picked up another pick-axe and became a mass murderer. That explains why people are always taking pictures of him and why people are always looking for him. Waldo is an expert killer who leaves no witnesses. If someone trains a camera on him, he steps out into the open, smiles and waves at the camera, then fades back into the shadows. So the only way to save your life when he's near is to always travel with a camera. That's why I'm glad I have a camera-phone."

"It's a children's book," Gus protested.

"Yes, well so is Hiroshima No Pika, the touching story of the atom bomb. And Who Cares About Disabled People? which, regardless of its message, has a title that speaks for itself. What about I Wish Daddy Didn't Drink So Much or Outside Over There which was the inspiration for the 'The Labyrinth'?" Shawn demanded. "The House That Crack Built teaches how drug-dealers live in sweet mansions. And Sometimes My Mommy Gets Angry? That story terrifies children by showing them that seemingly normal parents can snap at any time and you know that if Annie's grandmother really cared about her she'd do more than offer platitudes on the phone."

"Those can't be real books," Riley said, looking disturbed. "Let alone children's books."

"They can and they are," Shawn insisted. "All you need to know about The Poodle-Pug-Dachshund-Pinscher is that it was published in 1940 by Nazis. Latawnya, The Naughty Horse, Learns to Say No to Drugs has horses OD-ing. As for Alfies Home…let's just say it's about childhood sexual abuse and leave it at that for everyone's sanity."

"Just because some people clearly don't understand what's age-appropriate for children…or should ever be allowed near a child ever again…doesn't mean that Waldo is a serial killer!" Gus argued.

"You stick to your story, I'll stick to mine," Shawn told him.

Gus closed his eyes and counted to ten in his head. "Doctor, do you have any idea what the only psychopaths to kill you kindly are?"

"The Weeping Angels," the Doctor told them. "Now, while this has been fascinating – and disturbing – I need to get back to work."

"Next question," Riley told them. "Which children's book character was widely believed to be a camera-shy serial killer?"

"We are so good at this," Shawn declared, pleased, after the last question had been answered, the ship had been restarted, and they had headed back to the room the TARDIS was in to meet up with the Doctor.

"You are so very bad at this," the Doctor argued, coming up behind them.

"What do you mean?" Riley demanded. "We saved the day and everything!"

"With three seconds to spare," McDonnell said pointedly. "There was literally three seconds to impact when you managed to abort it."

"So we cut it a little close," Shawn said, unconcerned. "The important thing is that we're not dead right now."

"I agree," Gus said, nodding. "It might have been a little less nerve-wracking if we had, say, five minutes to spare but it all worked out."

"You had over half an hour to answer thirty questions and no unexpected complications," the Doctor said flatly.

"I wouldn't say we had no interruptions," Gus argued. "We did, after all, manage to cure Korwin."

"Hey, don't pin this on me!" Korwin told them.

"That happened well before the twenty-minute mark," Scannell pointed out.

"Some of those questions were hard," Riley defended.

"And some of those questions asked your favorite color and the date of our maiden voyage," Scannell retorted. "If you had actually stayed on task and not wasted so much time bickering then you wouldn't have cut it so close!"

"Maybe not but it doesn't matter just how close we cut it because we still pulled it off," Shawn said defiantly.

Ashton rolled his eyes. "You can't use the fact that you happened to be fine to justify your irresponsibility!"

"I don't see why not," Shawn disagreed. "You're welcome, by the way. I doubt anyone else on this ship besides maybe the Doctor could have answered those questions."

"Yeah, I hadn't even heard of Elvis Presley and the Beatles," Riley defended them, pronouncing them correctly this time.

The Doctor sighed wistfully. "Now that sounds like an amazing team-up…"

"I'm still not convinced that we couldn't have saved Korwin without dumping all of our fuel but what's done is done, I suppose," McDonnell said reluctantly.

"I did run a scan on the sun and found out that it was alive," the Doctor pointed out. "So chances are that that really was our best chance. That poor star…make sure to let people know about it, okay? It needs to be cared for and protected like any other living thing so we can make sure that nothing like this happens again."

" 'That poor star'?" McDonnell couldn't believe it. "It tried to kill us!"

"You ripped out its heart," the Doctor countered. "It was really self-defense."

"How were we supposed to know that it was alive?" McDonnell demanded.

"We went over this," the Doctor said tiredly. "The rudimentary scan you should have performed before mining fuel from there and don't even start with me about worrying about getting caught because everyone on the ship knew what you were doing and no one else was anywhere nearby!"

"But we didn't know!" McDonnell said again. "It was an honest mistake and it tried to destroy us!"

"What difference does the fact you didn't know make, particularly in light of the fact that you should have known?" the Doctor asked her rhetorically. "If you encounter an alien race one day that tries to cut out your heart for fuel but 'didn't know' that you were alive, would you killing it in self-defense be acceptable?"

"That's different," McDonnell said stubbornly.

The Doctor sighed again. "Course it is. You lot are humans and it always is with you."

"Are you guys sure that you don't want a ride?" Gus asked anxiously.

Riley nodded. "It's a lovely offer but unnecessary. We have enough supplies to last us and have sent out an official mayday. The authorities will pick us up soon enough and if we went with you we'd have to abandon ship."

"I can understand not wanting to do that," the Doctor remarked, fondly patting the TARDIS' side.

"And when the authorities get here, we aren't going to tell them what happened," McDonnell said firmly. "We're just going to let them know we had some engine problems and the computer malfunctioned. We decided to scan the star and found out it was alive. We did nothing illegal and won't have to pay a fine. Is that okay with you, Doctor?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I don't intend to wait until the proper authorities get here so it's really not up to me. It was lovely meeting you all and do try to be more responsible in the future. Shawn, Gus?"

The pair also said their goodbyes and then followed the Doctor onto the TARDIS.

"I still can't believe that stupid internet campaign you started managed to become that big," Gus said, shaking his head in disgust. "I mean, really Shawn? Waldo?"

"I, for one, feel vindicated," Shawn said nobly. "Spread the awareness, Gus."

"Hey, do either of you mind if we head someplace freezing?" the Doctor asked them. "I haven't been skiing in awhile…"

"Sounds good," Gus told him.

"You know, Doctor, we've been doing this with you for quite awhile," Shawn began slowly.

The Doctor grinned. "Let me guess: you want TARDIS keys."

"If it wouldn't be too inconvenient," Gus told him.

The Doctor pulled two keys-on-a-string off of his neck. "Nah, I always care spares. You never know, after all."

"Does this mean we're going steady?" Shawn asked with perfect seriousness.

Review Please!