INT. TARDIS

Doctor Two wakes up, his head groggy. There's a bruise on one side of his face from where Rose clubbed him. He notices that his hands are free and stands up.

DOCTOR TWO
Rose?

He looks around and sees the Brygosan, Theelia, unconscious on the ground nearby. Her hands and feet are bound and tied to a railing. She isn't going anywhere.

DOCTOR TWO
Rose?

He steps up to the control console, when he suddenly notices that the door to the Tardis is slightly ajar. Neon light seeps in from outside. Curious, he walks over.

EXT. BOURBON STREET, NEW ORLEANS - NIGHT

Loud party music plays as thousands of people, mostly drunk coeds, celebrate spring break. Scantily clad women lift their shirts and bikini tops in exchange for beads, much to the satisfaction of the gathered crowds. Neon lights from jammed restaurants and clubs beckon others to cram their way inside. Musicians perform with exotic-looking dancers on raised stages setup along the boardwalk.

Amidst all the chaos, Doctor Two steps out of a dilapidated blue phone booth. A jock and his conquest for the evening, a GIGGLY REDHEAD, wander by and are taken with it.

JOCK
Whoa, is that a phone booth? That's, like, retro, man. I didn't even know they still had those. Yo, can I piss in there?

Doctor Two locks the door.

DOCTOR TWO
No, you may not.

JOCK
(offended)
Pssh, whatever, man.

DOCTOR TWO
I'm looking for a young woman. Her name is Rose.

GIGGLY REDHEAD
My name is Rose.

The jock looks surprised. He turns to her.

JOCK
Shut up. Seriously?

GIGGLY REDHEAD
(nods)
Mmhm.

DOCTOR TWO
Small universe, but this girl is blonde.

JOCK
Look around, man. Lotsa blondes.

DOCTOR TWO
This one had a rather unique facial implant.

JOCK
What's that, like, a piercing?

DOCTOR TWO
Yes, only larger. It may have looked vaguely like a chicken.

The jock thinks.

JOCK
Hmmm, maybe. You got a picture of her boobs?

DOCTOR TWO
Do I... what? No.

JOCK
Sorry, man. Kinda locked in tonight. There was this blonde chick, though, had half her head shaved, and this big thing on her face. Didn't really look like a chicken. More like, I don't know, maybe a ferret jumping off a rock or something. Like, if its legs were out and stuff, ya know, on one side. Really freaky chick, not into that, myself. I like the clean look. But ya can't argue with a set like that. I mean, they were perfect.

He illustrates the shape of perfect breasts with his hands. His date nods in agreement.

GIGGLY REDHEAD
They really were. Like, I'm not even offended he said that.

DOCTOR TWO
Did you see which way she went?

JOCK
Nah.

GIGGLY REDHEAD
But she asked about the best place to go for dancing. Girl needed to work it out. I'm not from around here, but my friend said Silver Dollar's pretty hot. It's a block or two that way.

DOCTOR TWO
Thank you.

GIGGLY REDHEAD
Hehe. Bye.

Hand-in-hand, they scoot off.

Doctor Two looks around at the huge crowd of people enjoying their spring break and exhales deeply before wading his way through them.

INT. SILVER DOLLAR NIGHT CLUB

Loud techno music blares. Neon lights capable of inducing seizures in people who aren't properly inebriated dance along the walls. Fire hazard levels of young people crowd the dance floor and grind on each other.

At a bar in the far corner, Rose downs the contents of a shot glass. She turns over the empty glass and lines it up next to four others. Six guys stand around her, cheering her on. She's wearing enough bead necklaces to cover her entire neck.

GUY 1
Yeah!

GUY 2
This next one's on me. I got the next one.

GUY 3
You got the last one. I'm getting this one.

ROSE
Boys, boys, please. Don't fight.

She motions to the bartender to keep them coming.

ROSE
I'm just getting started.

They cheer her on. The bartender pours her another shot and she downs it easily.

ROSE
But right now, it's time to get my dance on.

Rose turns from the bar and pushes her way to the middle of the dance floor. The six guys follow her and get up next to her as she gets her thing on.

Meanwhile, at the entrance, Doctor Two moves inside and then slides over to the wall to get out of everyone's way. He scans the room looking for Rose. It takes him a few seconds to find her.

In the middle of the dance floor, Rose writhes with the music, letting loose her inhibitions. She dances close with one of the guys from the bar, then another, then moves on to teasing the next. Then, she turns to move on to the next guy, but freezes for a moment when she sees Doctor Two standing next to her.

She stares into his eyes as he stands there, like an anchored buoy in the sea of people. Once again, she moves her hips in rhythm with the music. She dances with her whole body, except her eyes. She keeps her eyes locked on Doctor Two.

DOCTOR TWO
We need to leave, now.

ROSE
Did you know I can't get drunk? I think it's this thing.

She points to the implant.

DOCTOR TWO
Rose...

He reaches out to grab her arm, but one of the guys from the bar gets in his way. She dances with the guy, seductively, the kind of dance that would make another man jealous. She watches Doctor Two's expression for any change. The longer he stands there, staring at her, the wider her smile grows.

Across the room, a BOUNCER notices Doctor Two standing in the middle of the other dancers. This piques the enormous man's attention and he walks over. He grabs Doctor Two's arm from behind.

BOUNCER
No creepers.

Doctor Two deftly steps to the side and around the bouncer before he can react. He grabs the bouncer just below the neck and applies the Vulcan neck pinch, which somehow works. The bouncer starts to fall over, but Doctor Two catches the man and drags him over to the bar. He props the man up on one of the stools.

The bartender looks at Doctor Two, suspicious.

DOCTOR TWO
(shrugs)
Hard to find good help these days, isn't it?

Doctor Two walks away and towards the back.

From the dance floor, Rose watches Doctor Two until he disappears through a door in the back. She keeps dancing.

INT. BACK ROOM - SILVER DOLLAR NIGHT CLUB

Doctor Two removes an energy pistol from his jacket pocket as he enters a short hallway in the back of the club. The first door on the left leads to a glassed-in area where a PERVERT SECURITY GUARD watches a couple go at it from a hidden camera in the club's bathroom. Doctor Two sees this, knocks on the door, then opens it.

DOCTOR TWO
Hi, could you direct me to the club's ventilation system?

Without looking up...

PERVERT SECURITY GUARD
Yeah, second door on the right. Hey, wait a minute...

The security guard, suddenly flustered, bursts out of his chair to confront the intruder.

DOCTOR TWO
Thanks.

Doctor Two shoots the security guard in the chest. Stunned, the man falls over onto the ground, unconscious.

Doctor Two walks to the second door on the right.

INT. VENTILATION ROOM - SILVER DOLLAR NIGHT CLUB

Doctor Two enters a small room with humming machinery that blows directly into an air vent via large metal fans. As he approaches, he pulls a small round rubber ball from his jacket pocket and places it near one of the fans. He then uses his fingernail to puncture the ball's surface. It immediately begins to degrade, emitting green fumes which are sucked up into the ventilation system of the night club.

INT. SILVER DOLLAR NIGHT CLUB

As Rose continues to dance with the six guys from the bar, green fumes are pumped into the room via the vents. From the outskirts of the room in, people start dropping like flies. They fall to the ground in waves. Rose doesn't notice until the guy she's flirting with at that moment drops right in front of her. She yelps, noticing the green fumes, and quickly covers her face with her shirt.

DOCTOR TWO (O.S.)
Don't worry. It won't affect you.

She looks over and sees Doctor Two standing a few feet away with piles of people at his feet.

DOCTOR TWO
At least, it won't so long as you were telling the truth about the implant not letting you get drunk.

ROSE
You drugged everyone? Are you insane?!

DOCTOR TWO
Sometimes you have to drug a room full of people to have a conversation. It's not as if you gave me another choice.

Rose bends down to make sure the people near her are breathing. They are.

DOCTOR TWO
This isn't a game. I'm not going to chase you to kingdom come.

ROSE
I didn't ask you to chase me at all.

DOCTOR TWO
Please. You could have tied me up, like you did Theelia. You could have dropped me off on some planet, who knows where.

ROSE
I just needed to get away from you. I needed time to think, time to-

DOCTOR TWO
Home, Rose. Home is away from me. Not bloody Mardi Gras.

ROSE
It's Spring Break! Mardi Gras was last month.

DOCTOR TWO
Whatever.

ROSE
Who the hell are you?

DOCTOR TWO
I'm the Doctor.

ROSE
No, you're not. Not my Doctor. My Doctor would have known that I had opened the hatch in the Tardis before. I knew there was something strange about you. I got a message from my Doctor, calling you an impostor.

DOCTOR TWO
He is the impostor! Not me.

He pauses a moment to let that sink in.

DOCTOR TWO
An impostor from the future. I arrived at your school to stop Daga Rumm from placing you and your classmates under mind control when he jumped me. He locked me up and stole my Tardis, just so he could...

ROSE
So he could what?

DOCTOR TWO
So he could be with you.

Rose consider his words, obviously confused by them.

ROSE
I don't understand.

DOCTOR TWO
I spent years under lock and key, picked apart, interrogated, and tortured. I endured pain you couldn't even comprehend. I cried, I screamed, and I begged, but it never stopped. And for what?! Because a future version of me wanted his bloody girlfriend back?! I don't know if you died or just broke his damn heart, but it was my life! He had no right to take it from me! You had no right!

ROSE
I didn't-

DOCTOR TWO
What's so damn special about you, anyway?

ROSE
I beg your pardon.

DOCTOR TWO
You're just another human. You open your eyes one day, and in the blink of an eye, it's a hundred years later, and you're dust. You don't know the first thing about time travel. Your contribution to the universe is like that of a single rain drop that falls into the ocean during a storm. The only fleeting thing special about you is me. You're my companion. Without me, you're nothing. You're another one of these Mardi Gras whores, dancing and flirting with faceless nobodies to drown your lack of significance in inebriation and stimulation overload.

Rose's gaze falls on the people spread out all over the ground. She sees their faces. How did they all come to be here?

DOCTOR TWO
Do you have any idea the pain you've caused me? Because of you, I have the responsibility to clean up a galactic mess that affects trillions of lives on hundreds of worlds across tens of thousands of years. I didn't want it! I had a life, my own responsibilities. I don't want any of this! I wish I had never met you. And if I had it within my power, I would take the Tardis back a third time, to the moment before I ever met you, and stop myself. I would tell my past self to get back in the Tardis and travel as far away from Earth as possible, a million years in either direction.

ROSE
(defiant)
So, why don't you?

DOCTOR TWO
See how stupid you are? No one can travel to the same point in time and space three times. Whether I like it or not, that other me exists, the one who just can't let you go, and that means I have to deal with him. You know what really claws at my skin the most, though? I don't even think the two of you were together for all that long. A couple of years tops, compared to the lifetime of a Time Lord? You're pretty, but you're not that pretty. I can't imagine what he sees in you.

Hurt, Rose bites her lower lip, before responding...

ROSE
He said I had a good heart.

He scoffs.

DOCTOR TWO
A good heart. Well, I guess that makes it all worth it, doesn't it?

He walks by her and heads for the door.

Looking dejected, Rose's shoulders droop.

DOCTOR TWO (O.S.)
You coming, or what? The universe isn't going to save itself.

She takes one last look around, then follows him out.

-To be Continued...-