Thank You, God, for everything.
DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Doctor Who. Oh, looky, an update. HOW STRANGE. Okey dokey, hey, guys, I entered this Doctor Who writing contest, and it would mean an awful gosh darn lot if you hearted my story 'cause I want to win and stuff, you know. You can find it on my profile - just delete the spaces. Thankies! :)
Amy's eyes were comically widened, making her look like an animated kid's show zombie-robot. If this wasn't creeping her out, she would have laughed at how silly everyone was looking. And she meant everyone, for everywhere around the studios, from the janitor's closets to the bathrooms to the makeup rooms, there was shouts of horror and surprised as they all turned into controlled puppets.
"Doctor! Why exactly are we acting like this?" Rory shouted, for they were in one of the wide and tall halls, and the Doctor was darting ahead, away from them, his sonic screwdriver in front of him like a stop sign, making people hurry to avoid him.
"I'm looking for a cause, Rory. Stay calm, all in good time, Roman," the Doctor said, and he skitted to a stop and banged at his screwdriver with the palm of his hand. Stupid thing wasn't getting anything! Not over here, anyway. Oh, wait! and he darted into another studio.
"He's off exploring again, isn't he?" Amy said, looking over to her husband.
Rory sighed and nodded.
"He's like a little kid, isn't he?" Amy commented.
"Most of the time," Rory said. He glanced at his robot-like limbs. "Oh, gosh, I feel like an idiot."
"Idiot puppet, actually," Amy said, her limbs jerking up and down and to the side. She grinned. "I feel like one of those robots you see performing in the streets."
"Yeah, but we've got no control over what we do," Rory said.
"Cheer up, Roman," Amy said, winking at him.
He smiled at that.
The Doctor came hurrying out of the room, bending his legs to a smooth angle and swishing out like he was wearing socks on a freshly waxed floor.
"Hello!" he said excitedly, looking to Amy and Rory. "I may have found the reason everyone's acting so, well, weird."
"More than usual?" Amy said, raising an eyebrow.
"Weird? In Hollywood? How odd," Rory said.
"How ood," the Doctor said wittily, and then a second passed and his grin disappeared as his hand holding his sonic screwdriver began to shake and twitch. "Oh, no no no no no no no no no no no!" the Doctor said hurriedly, as his feet and knees and neck started to twitch as well. He let out a shout of disgust as it overcame his entire body, making him look like he was doing a very strange dance, the very look of a puppet on strings.
"What the hell is happening!" the Doctor said loudly, looking incredulously over to the Ponds, who both looked like they were going to die with laughter. "Oh, look smug, will you, but the same thing is happening to you!"
Amy just died.
"Oh, shut up!" the Doctor yelled. "Oh, I feel terribly like a human, all vulnerable like this! Disgusting!"
"Hey, you're insulting my race!" Rory pointed out.
"Don't see us insulting your Time Lords," Amy said.
"Oh, shut it, Ponds!" the Doctor said, and he smashed into the wall, his side taking the brunt of the impact. "Blimey, that hurts," he groaned. He hurried ahead. They were still in a bit of control with their legs, and all were traveling to the exits of the studios. In a stumbling sort of way, like a bunch of drunks, the Ponds and the Doctor hurried out of the main building and wound their way through the traffic of the studios, avoiding the skidding golf carts and the people spinning in circles. They were like malfunctioning Cybermen.
The Doctor struck a button on his screwdriver and managed to buzz the lock on the gates, and he pushed the doors to the studios open with his shoulder and he and the Ponds piled out on the sidewalk.
"What are we doing?" Amy called. Rory hit the studios' outside wall.
"Heading for the TARDIS. To the beach. Anywhere from that gas!" the Doctor said, walking stumpily ahead.
"There's a gas, now?" Rory said, cocking his head and then tilting it to a painful angle. "Ouch!"
"What'd you think it was, Pond?" the Doctor said, and then something happened. He felt very loose, like a nail struck from its boards, or a cannon. His limbs felt all wibbly instead of grindy, and he suddenly fell, very lax, to the sidewalk.
"Doctor?" Amy said, concerned, before she felt the same and fell to the ground.
Rory fell beside her, letting out an annoyed, "Ow."
The Doctor immediately sprung up, as chipper as a child once more. "Oh, oh, oh oh oh goody!" he said, waving his hands in front of himself gleefully. "I've recovered full authority over my being!"
"I'd rather have that all of the time," Amy said, sitting up and looking as if she had just risen from bed. She rubbed the back of her head with her hand, and looked around to see several people coming, creeping around the corners while keeping the police trapped in their throngs.
"Hey, boys?" Amy said, commanding the eyes of Rory, who was laying flat on his back, and the Doctor, who finally stopped becoming so fixated with his hands. "We've got company."
Oh crap. Paps.
Rory sighed and turned his head to look at the sky. He threw up his hands and said, "Brilliant."
"Now's the time I'd say 'Run,' but if you did that, you'd smash headfirst into that wall right there." (The Doctor pointed ahead.) "So just skedaddle back into the studios and let's go find where that can of gas is!"
"Who's saying it's a can?" Amy asked, wobbling as she got to her feet.
"Who's saying it isn't?" the Doctor said, rubbing his hands together excitedly as Amy groaned as she pulled Rory to his feet.
"Let's just move, shall we?" Amy said, and the three darted back to the gates. Avoiding the questions from the paps about their clothes and why they were hurrying into the studios, they hurried in and the Doctor backed into the gate doors, pushing them together and locking the lock. He let out a breath, and then a yelp as hands and camera lenses touched his back.
He skipped, rubbing hands against his clothes, to in between Rory and Amy, saying with disgust toward the paps, "Do - you - mind!"
"It's just their job, Doctor," Amy pointed out.
"Doesn't make it all right with me," the Doctor said. He let out a shudder and fixing his tweed jacket, he turned around and put his arms around the shoulders of his friends, and said, "Shall we see if everyone else has recovered?"
"No, I was totally thinking of the opposite of that," Rory said.
"I like my plan better. Come along, Ponds," the Doctor said rather cheerfully, a bright smile on his face, and the three, their steps synchronized, walked forward and took in the sights of the Hollywood peoples.
The golf carts had stopped and several were crashed into different pieces of equipment, which had been, no doubt here, very expensive. The Doctor could tell this from the looks of horror from the many faces of the directors and producers and staff members.
Several were stumbling around on their feet, trying to regain control of their bodies, which were now like jelly. Several were looking at themselves, amazed that it had worn off. Others were yelling, wondering what had happened? Some wanted an explanation quickly. Others had megaphones on. Others were shouting into headsets, others rushing carts full of props across the lot.
"The gas wore off them," Amy observed, sounding pleased.
"But how?" Rory wondered, curious. "Was it a temporal thing, or does it have a longer lasting effect as time goes by, giving them a short break to make themselves feel reassured?"
"Or was it something they just needed to inhale and the side effects was the jottiness?" Amy suggested.
The Doctor looked between his favorite couple's faces proudly. He had taught them well, even if it was just by them being around him, being influenced by his assuming and theorizing ways.
"A-plus for effort, Ponds. BUT, I think I have a theory of my own," the Doctor said, raising his hands.
"And what would that be?" Amy said, sounding confused.
"Notice how everyone was heading out of the rooms and stuff. The studios, the loos and the trailers. We were heading out here. I think we were being pulled to something, like a gravity of some sort was moving us," the Doctor said.
"To what, though?" Amy said.
"Haven't a clue. That's what we need to figure out, though," the Doctor said cheerfully, and the three of them hurried through the lot back to the living room set. None of them noticed in the slightest Camille Burnett hanging in a doorway, sunglasses and big, plastic hair up, scowling as she cursed, looking about the lot. People were regaining control of themselves. Well, this would never do.
Inside of their studio room, the Doctor released his friends and leapt onto the sound-stage, bending and bowing his head and craning it as he spun around, saying, "All right, here it is."
"You found it?" Amy asked, cocking her head as she and Rory approached the stage.
"Oh, no. I meant the scene of the crime. For us, anyway." The Doctor's screwdriver was out and wavering around like it was riding on sound waves. "The currents are the heaviest over here, meaning this place is the source, which, you know, is terribly convenient." He stopped, still, at the gazing, wondering Ponds, and said, waving his hands, "For Pete's sake, help me look! It's hide-and-seek!"
"Oh, fine," Amy said, ducking her head around a sink as Rory headed over to the sofa and started to toss the cushions off of it.
They had just started when a number of people came into the room. Mostly cameramen and staff, but also James Peering, the director, looking haphazard and bedraggled.
"What was that?" he demanded, looking from Rory looking in the TV system's cupboards to Amy taking out stacks of cups in the kitchen to the Doctor flicking books off their shelves with a delicate finger.
The Doctor looked to James and said, "That was movie magic, Director."
"No it wasn't, come on," James said.
"Alien intervention, then," the Doctor said, not missing a beat.
"Strangely enough, Doctor, not everything strange that happens in Hollywood is alien," James said, scowling.
"Oh, I'm dead serious. Besides the dead part, of course," the Doctor said. He turned away from the empty bookshelves toward the kitchen's counter island, and he went around it and began to examine the shelves.
"Aliens? No, you can't be correct. Aliens DO NOT exist," James said, "not for real, honest, Doctor. I mean, have you ever seen ANYTHING resembling an alien, or any evidence of aliens at all?"
"He's living proof," Amy muttered under her breath.
"Ah-ha!" the Doctor said, and he emerged, his hair tussled, and his hand bearing the gas pod. He positively beamed. "How about this for your unbelieving eyes, James?" He straightened and bounced around to look from Pond to Pond, said, "You can give up the search. I found it." He turned back and let out a delighted noise as he ran past James to the exit.
"Hey, where are you going?" James called after him, but the Doctor ignored him.
"He'll figure it out, don't worry," Amy said, waving a hand as she leaned against the counter.
James shook his head at the exit, wondering what sort of mad man that Doctor was, and he turned to a staff member, who was pointing to a clipboard and explaining things in his ear. He nodded and sent her off to go get their people, and he clapped his hands and said, "All right, people. Let's get this show back together. Time is money, and I don't have a lot of it, so we need to shoot this scene, despite this little interference."
"Um, hey, sorry, no can do," Rory said, walking off the stage to stand next to James.
"No can do what? You're hired. It's your job," James said quickly.
"Yeah, but we can't do that scene. At all. Scratch it" - Rory made a rubbing motion with his hands across the air - "we can't have it."
"Why not?" James said, hands on his hips.
"Well, it's because he's feeling awfully protective of his wife and doesn't want her kissing other gross men," Amy said, falling into step next to Rory. She waved a hand toward Levi, who was carrying around his alien head in his hands, and said, "No offense."
"It's a part of the scene," James said emphatically. "It moves along the plot, interests you in the characters' story-lines. It can't be left out."
"Ya really want to say that, boy-o?" Amy said, cocking her head, Rory beside her looking murderous.
To all who celebrate, happy Easter! :) God bless you!