Chapter 7

"I can't believe we've brought the Doctor clubbing."

Kim covered her face and hoped that no one in the club would recognise her as she watched the Doctor attempting to get jiggy with it.

"Where else were we going to take him?" asked Marci.

"Anywhere's better than here!" cried Kim, "look at him!" she pointed shame-faced to the Doctor, doing his best to emulate the late nineties dance moves and managing only to scare a group of dancing ladies with the speed of his erratic gyration.

"You don't have to stay," Simon pointed out, "you can go home if you want to."

"Says you!" cried Kim, "you hate the club and the Doctor, why are you here?"

Simon looked slightly awkward.

"I want to see the Doctor fall flat on his arse," he said sheepishly.

Kim gave a sigh.

"At least you're honest," She said.

"Rory Two!" the Doctor cried, beckoning Jake over, "let's see your moves!"

"Oh Jesus Christ," Jake face-palmed and wished he could slide down the drain and into oblivion.

"Not enjoying your new role as companion then?" Shaz asked him, giggling a little.

"This is the one place I have an ounce of credibility and I'm about to lose it by dancing next to the club repellent over there," he said, pointing as more clubbers gave him a wide berth. To his surprise Clara danced in his direction.

"Come on," she nodded towards the Doctor, "if you want to join us you have to take the rough with the smooth!"

"If the 'rough' is his trouser material then he's going to have some serious chaffing," Jake mumbled as the Doctor used frantic hand signals to beckon Jake again.

"Come on!" he cried as his legs seemed to bend in eight different directions at once, "you're missing all the fun!"

"I'm having plenty of fun standing over here!" Jake protested, holding up his hand to refuse the request but Clara gripped him by the wrist and pulled him onto the dance floor.

"Come on, she insisted, "when you can travel through time humiliation is a temporary state"

Jake gulped as he found himself swept toward the Doctor, who was now rotating his hips to Brimful of Asha as though operating an invisible hula hoop.

"So will my credibility be," he whined.

~xXx~

"Things are getting strange, I'm starting to worry, this could be a case for Mulder and Scully…"

"Isn't one bloody science fiction invasion enough?" Gene scowled and Alex sighed.

"It's a song," she told him. He looked at her blankly. "Catatonia?"

"No, but that's the state I'm going to be in if bloody Chinstable doesn't sling his intergalactic hook by morning," Gene folded his arms.

Alex sighed again.

"That's the band," she said, "shit, you are so out of the loop since they closed Bask."

"If that's the state of the bloody charts then it's not a loop I want to be in," Gene told her. He stopped at the exit and peered outside momentarily. "Right. This way, Bollinger Knickers."

Alex closed her eyes and took a very deep breath.

"I'm really not sure this is a good idea," she told Gene, but already knew she was wasting her breath.

"Neither was that sprout sorbet," Gene said with a belch, "Can't believe I let you talk me into trying that green-death-in-a-cone."

"There was nothing wrong with the sprout sorbet, it was having eight servings that caused the problem," Alex told him but before she could admonish him further he slipped out of the doors. "Wait!" Rolling her eyes, Alex knew she had no option but to follow. "I'm going to regret this," she said aloud, "let it be known that I am stating officially for the records that I am going to regret this."

"Your testimony will not hold up in a court of law," Gene told her as they approached the Tardis. He handed her the crowbar that he'd been carrying conspicuously through the car park. "Hold this."

Alex stared at Gene, then at the unwieldy object.

"No!"

"Just for a moment."

"I'm not getting my finger prints all over that and implicating myself in a…" she shook her head, "crime across time, space and reality!"

"It's a ruddy police box, Bols, I'm taking back what's rightfully ours!"

"It's not though, Gene! It might look like one on the outside but crack that thing open and who knows what otherworldly horrors you'll be releasing!"

"Like Shoebury's jumper?" Gene asked.

Alex shuddered.

"Not quite that bad," she said.

Genre shook his head.

"You telling me you don't even want to take a peek in there?" he asked. Despite herself Alex couldn't stop her gaze from flicking to the door.

"It's not our property, Gene," she tried to protest, "we'd be trespassing.

"His property is trespassing on our property," Gene reminded her, "if he didn't want us to look inside it then he shouldn't have parked it there!"

"I don't think he had much of a choice," Alex pointed out but before she could protest any further she found the crowbar thrust into her hands and she had no choice but to take hold of it.

"Oh dear lord, I am going to spend the night on the other side of a cell," she groaned.

"Just checking the security on this thing," Gene told her, "maybe he keeps a key under the doormat."

"And where does he keep the doormat?" Alex sighed, one eyebrow rising.

Gene hesitated.

"Probably the same place as he keeps his charm, good looks and quick wits," he mumbled, "up his jacksy." He reached out to feel around the door for some kind of handle or lock but to his surprise it opened by itself and a warm glow seeped out from inside. Smugly he turned to Alex, folding his arms. "Looks like two can play at the door opening game," he said.

"Just because it's opened doesn't mean it's an invitation," Alex reminded him.

"Bollocks."

"The Super's fly was open yesterday but it wasn't an invitation for all and sundry to lure him into a Fenchurch East tryst!" Alex pointed out.

Gene raised an eyebrow.

"Come on, Bolly," he folded his arms, are you seriously trying to tell me you don't want to?"

Alex was confused by the look on Gene's face.

"Don't want to what?" she asked.

"Fancy a quick bunk up in the Tardis."

Alex's jaw dropped.

"Gene!" she hissed.

"I can see that twinkle in yer eye," Gene told her.

"That's not a twinkle, that's the reflection of the flashing blue lights when we get caught for indecent exposure and committing a lewd act in some… weird glowing police box!"

"We bonked in heaven!"

"That was different!"

"How?"

Alex blushed.

"We had toilet roll to clean up afterwards for a start," she mumbled, her cheeks reddening, "and besides, that was in a pub!"

"He'll have a bog roll somewhere, he doesn't wipe his arse on the fragile fabric of the space/time continuum!"

"That's hardly the point!" Alex glanced around to make sure no one was watching. "How do I know I won't sit in the wrong spot and get a," she coughed, "sonic screwdriver in a delicate place?" she saw Gene starting to smirk, working on a way to link her comment to his prowess and held up her hand. "Don't answer that"

"Once in a lifetime, Bolly," Gene told her, "won't get another chance like this one."

Alex stared at the open door and the strange glow from within. She would be lying if she said she wasn't tempted.

"One comment about making me see stars and you're on your own," she warned him.

Gene looked at her, somewhat smugly.

"When we get started I'll be so busy blowing your mind that I won't have time for crappy gags," he said and Alex rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah," she said as Gene stepped inside the Tardis.

"Want me to give you some space?"

"You can give me back the sense or peace I felt in my life before I heard those puns," Alex glowered.

~xXx~

"I don't fucking believe it."

Simon scowled as he slurped his beer loudly. He was only slurping as a method of dealing with his anger.

"What's the matter?" Kim sighed.

"Look!" Simon pointed angrily, "they're all dancing with him! Everyone! The whole fucking dance floor!"

Maci danced across to them, en route to collect another drink.

"Hey!" she beamed, "why don't you join us?"

"And you!" Simon pointed, "I'm ashamed of you!"

Marci looked stricken.

"Why?" she asked worriedly.

"You're the best dancer in this club and you're joining in!"

Marci glanced across at the dance floor.

"We're 'doing' The Doctor!" she protested.

"I didn't wish to now that!" Simon covered his ears.

"It's a dance craze!" Marci explained, prising his hands from his ears, "the Doctor invented it!"

"Oh you do surprise me!" Simon cried, his hands flailing in the air and beer flying in all directions, "leg movements like that, it had to be either him or an ostrich!"

Marci frowned and ignored the grumpy Simon, instead dancing her way to the bar and collecting a couple of alcopops. She rejoined the others a moment later and handed something blue and alcoholic to Clara.

"Here," she said.

"Oh thank you," Clara took it in surprise. She looked at the bottle and gave a little laugh. "It's… very nineteen ninety eight."

Marci could feel herself blushing a little.

"So you're from the future, yeah?" she asked and Clara nodded.

"To me you're from the past," she pointed out.

"So," Marci began, "in the future… are you and the Doctor…"

"What?" Clara asked, then saw the look on Marci's face. "Oh, no," she closed her eyes and gave a slightly awkward smile, "we're friends. That's all."

"And in the future… to your future?" Marci asked, "do you want to be more than friends?"

"Me and the Doctor?" Clara snorted a little, not quite meeting Marci's eye, "don't be daft."

"Oh," Marci raised her eyebrow, "OK." She sipped from her bottle. "Only, I don't think friends are supposed to look at friends the way you've been looking at him."

Clara's eyed widened as she gave an embarrassed laugh that showed a little too much dismay.

"What? No!" she cried, laughing a little too loudly, "no, we're friends. Travelling companions. That's all. Nothing more."

Marci pulled a face and nodded.

"If you say so," she said.

Clara drank her blue alcoholic nonsense drink and stared across the dance floor where a far more relaxed Jake was allowing the Doctor to demonstrate the finer motions of his new dance craze.

"Besides," she said, "you've been giving me a perfectly good demonstration of how not to look at friends."

"What?" Marci wrinkled up her nose as Clara smiled and nodded in the direction of Jake.

"Talk about the way I look at my best friend?" she said, "maybe you were looking in the mirror."

Marci gave a confused laugh as Clara smiled again and danced away towards the Doctor and Jake.

"No, he's my best –" she began but it was wasted on Clara as the music drowned her out, "best friend."

She swallowed as she stared at Jake, dancing away without a care. She felt a little strange, a little wobbly inside with a sudden wave of butterflies deep down in her belly.

"Where did that come from?" she murmured, then shook herself visibly to shoo them away. "This is stupid," she mumbled, "really stupid." She laughed as she looked at Jake, the most familiar face in her life. He was her best friend. Very, very best friend, but that was as far as it went, as far as it had ever gone. "Ridiculous," she said with a little frown.

She moved towards them through the throng of people, all 'doing the Doctor' on the dancefloor to join the fun but despite herself a little of the fluttering in the pit of her stomach remained. One or two of the butterflies just wouldn't go away and fluttered like crazy things, as erratically as the Doctor moved his legs. Suddenly Marci had a thing or two to think about.