Journey's Endings
Part Six: Hello! Hello again!
Author's Comments: Kim, Ron, Oscar Diggs and the Doctor have recovered the TARDIS that was stolen by the Empath, at the 1814 Battle of Bladensburg, one of the worst defeats ever suffered by an American army. Kim and Ron have also seen what war in the early 19th century is like, an experience they are not likely to forget. Now they are all in the stolen TARDIS, heading back to the basement of the White House, to pick up K-9 and Rufus. But knowing our friends we can expect more action, can't we? Read on, and see what happens next.
My thanks go to Mahler Avatar, CajunBear73, Coot, smith5576 and all others who have read the previous chapters. Please feel free to leave a comment about this story at any time. I will do my best to reply.
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"Well, we've arrived. Five hours after leaving and in exactly the same room on the ground floor of the White House."
At the time lord's words, Ron moved toward the door. "I hope Rufus and K-9 are okay."
"Wait, Ron! K-9 might think the Empath is coming back ― don't go rushing out there," Kim cautioned. Then she opened the door and called out, while staying in the TARDIS, "Don't do anything sudden, K-9! It's us."
"Hey, Rufus, it's me!" Ron added.
"We have the Empath prisoner, K-9; it's time to go, so please come in," the Doctor said calmly.
After a moment they heard a familiar squeak and an equally familiar voice. "Welcome, Mistress Kimberly. All is well, Master Ronald. Coming in, Master."
A moment later K-9 came rolling in with Rufus riding on his back. Ron scooped up his mole rat friend happily while the Doctor began working the viewscreen controls.
"Are the redcoats here yet, Doctor?"
"I'm just checking that now, Oscar. Hmmm . . . not yet, but probably soon, to judge by what's going on upstairs," the Doctor replied as he pointed at the screen.
Dolley Madison stood in the middle of a room while two men were rapidly bundling up drapes, silver plate and documents and packing them in wooden boxes. Two more men were working with a large portrait that was on the wall, apparently trying to get it down.
Kim nodded and turned to Ron. "Let's get up there ― that picture is important, and we should help." She shot out the door of the TARDIS with Ron right behind her, before the Doctor could call to them to stay put.
Even without a lantern to light their way, Kim and Ron found the stairs up to the room where Dolley Madison was preparing to leave. Paul and Jim, the two men they had met on their first visit, were struggling with the big picture. Dolley called out to Kim as the two teens burst into the room.
"Your machine is still in the storeroom, Kimberly, but the British Army is coming. You and your uncle should get K-9 to a safe place at once."
"Thank you, Mrs. Madison. He's doing that right now," Kim replied. "Can we help you with anything before we leave?"
Before Dolley Madison answered, Jim stepped back from the picture on the wall and called to her.
"We can't get it down, Ma'am. It's held to the wall by screws."
"Then get a screwdriver and unscrew it! Or else break the frame if you have to!" Dolley's voice was firm and Kim could tell that even though she was in a serious sitch, Mrs. Madison was keeping her cool. Jim and Paul promptly left to fetch suitable tools, while the other two men began carrying the packed boxes out of the room.
"Mrs. Madison, are you sure you don't mind if the frame is broken?" Kim asked.
"The frame doesn't matter, Kimberly, but that portrait of George Washington is one of our country's real treasures. I will not leave it for Admiral Cockburn to take back to London as a trophy for King George to hang in his palace."
Kim nodded. "Okay. Keep everyone back and out of the way." She paced off the distance from the wall with the portrait, turned and studied the sitch. To the wall . . . up to the frame . . . go!
Kim did a series of flips across the room and then a leap that sent her toward the portrait, feet first. Her right leg was extended and as her foot struck the lower edge of the frame there was a sharp crack of breaking wood. She dropped to the floor, did a shoulder roll and came to her feet smoothly.
"Grab that side, Ron!" Kim barked as she grasped the bottom of the portrait frame to one side of where it had just broken. Ron gripped a spot on the other side of the break, set his feet and at Kim's nod the two teens pulled. The wood creaked and then snapped, falling to the floor with a clatter.
Jim and Paul returned with pry-bars, while the doorkeeper came in carrying an ax. They all joined Kim and Ron in attacking the portrait's frame. In a few minutes the picture was free from the wall and they lowered it to the floor.
Dolley shook hands with both teens. "You two are remarkable! But now you'd better join your uncle and leave the city. There's no telling what the British soldiers will do once they get here." She went over to a table where several large pieces of paper were stacked.
"If you're sure you don't need more help," Kim replied, "then we'll be going."
Ron was looking at the top paper in the pile and asked, "Say, are these important, Ma'am?"
"Yes," said Dolley Madison, as she picked up the top sheet. "This is the original copy of the Declaration of Independence."
Kim was shocked to see such a historic document as this just lying on a pile of papers without any protection at all. The Declaration didn't even have a simple cover. Then she said, "We'd better get back to 'my uncle.' Come on, Ron."
"Thank you for helping with the picture," called Dolley as they left the room.
They got back to the storeroom to find Oscar standing in the doorway, holding a glowing light. Going into the TARDIS, they found the Doctor looking rather irritated.
"I was starting to worry," said the time lord. "I just did a distant scan and the leading British troops are only two miles away."
"Sorry, Doctor; we were helping Mrs. Madison with George Washington's picture," Kim explained. "But we can take care of ourselves, you know."
"Oh, I wasn't worried about you two," the Doctor replied. "But if you had decided to repel the British invasion by yourselves, you would have changed history in a major way."
For a moment Kim was sure that the Doctor was joking, but then Ron nudged her and said, "Well, anything is possible . . . for a Possible. Right, KP?"
"Ron!" Kim gave her friend a glare, and then giggled. Stop a whole army? she thought. Well . . . maybe.
The Doctor glanced around the room, and seeing that everyone was there, he closed the door. He made a few adjustments to the controls and then pushed a switch.
"This will take us to my TARDIS at the Patent Office. Then we can get Oscar back to 1862, and you three . . . " he looked at Kim, Ron and Rufus " . . . back to Middleton, Colorado."
Kim looked around the control room, glanced at Oscar and the trussed-up Empath and sighed. "I think I'll miss all this, Doctor. The TARDIS, time traveling and all." There was a chuckling sound from Rufus which K-9 promptly translated.
"Mistress Kimberly, Master Rufus says that your life will never be dull."
"You've got it, Rufus!" Ron put one finger to Rufus who promptly slapped it with one paw, and made a squeak that Kim thought sounded like, "High five!"
The time rotor came to a stop. The Doctor checked the controls, activated the viewscreen, and gave a satisfied nod. The screen showed the same cluttered room that they had first landed in.
"Ah, where's your TARDIS, Doctor?" Ron asked. "I don't see it out there."
"We're inside its control room, Ronald. The screen is set to view things outside both this TARDIS and mine."
"Wait a minute," Oscar asked. "How can one TARDIS fit inside another one? That would be like fitting the Merrimack inside the Monitor."
"Take his word for it," Ron said with a grin. "The Doctor does things you just can't explain . . . but they always work." Kim moved the handle of the door control, and as it swung open they all heard music. It sounded like a flute or clarinet, and someone in the Doctor's TARDIS was singing!
"What cher, all the neighbors cry.
Who ya gonna meet, Bill?
Think ya bought the street, Bill?"
"Say, Kim, doesn't that sound like . . . ?"
"I think it is, Ron." Kim gave her partner a knowing look and started for the open door, but the Doctor beat them to it. As they followed him, Kim and Ron heard an exclamation of surprise from the Time Lord, while the flute and singing continued.
"Laughed? I, thought I could've died.
Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road.
Knocked 'em in the Old . . . Kent . . . Ro-o-oad!"
Kim and Ron saw a person sitting on a stool and playing a tune on what looked like a clarinet. He wore a blue shirt, brown slacks, a dark blue bow tie with small white polka-dots, and a black blazer with a crest on the left lapel. A second man dressed in slacks, a striped blazer and a straw hat was holding a cane and just finishing an old-style English music hall dance. It was this second person that caught their attention.
"Drax?" Kim asked. "It is you, isn't it?"
"I didn't know you could sing," Ron remarked, stepping forward to shake Drax's hand.
"We had a couple of shows when I was in Brixton," the time lord said in his South London accent. "I did a turn, an' got a nice hand for it."
"Oscar, this is Drax. He's a time lord like the Doctor," Ron explained. "We picked up Oscar in the Civil War," he added as Drax and Oscar shook hands.
"Just what are you doing here? Again."
Kim turned toward the Doctor and saw that he was talking to the man who had been playing the music.
"I'm here for a very good reason, young fellow! Just give me a minute to explain and you'll understand." The stranger rose to his feet as he spoke, and Kim noted that he was shorter than the Doctor. His straight, black hair was about shoulder-high to the Time Lord, and she got a glimpse of a set of brightly-colored suspenders under the dark coat.
"Don't tell me Omega is causing trouble again. I couldn't believe that."
"Certainly not. Regeneration seems to have slowed down your thought processes."
"Hold everything!" Kim barked, stepping between the two arguing men. "Doctor, who is he and how is it you know him?"
"Well, Kimberly, you might say that we're the same sort of person," the Doctor began.
"Oh, you mean that you're both time lords?"
"Let me explain it to her, you'll just confuse things," the stranger said impatiently to the Doctor. "You see, Kim ― I may call you Kim, may I not? ― we're not just both time lords ― we're the same time lord."
Kim looked from the stranger to the Doctor and back again. "Not both, but the same time lord?" she asked in a puzzled tone.
"You see," said the Doctor, "he is me and I am he."
The stranger promptly sang,
"And we're all together
Goo goo g'joob."
Ron and Rufus traded bewildered looks with Oscar, who hesitantly asked, "What's that?"
"It's from a song by the Beatles," the short man explained, raising his instrument. "Would you like to hear it?"
Kim waved the stranger to silence, gave both him and the Doctor a stern look, and said, "So, you two, you're both the same person? But how . . . ?"
"Ahem!" the Doctor cleared his throat. "You may remember that I told you how we time lords can regenerate our bodies when we get very old, or seriously injured? And that I've done that a few times?"
Kim nodded in agreement, and the Doctor continued.
"Well, when regeneration takes place, as a rule we don't come out of it looking the same as we did before. Do you see?"
"So, he is what you were like, a long time ago. Is that it?" said Kim.
The stranger's eyebrows rose in surprise and he asked the Doctor, "Is she always that sharp?"
"Kim, you mean this guy is the Doctor when he was younger?" Ron's voice was that of a thoroughly bewildered person.
"I think so, Ron," Kim answered carefully. "That's what you mean, isn't it?" she added to the Doctor.
"Yes, Kimberly, this is me as I was two regenerations ago." The Doctor sighed. "You see, he's the first regeneration and I'm the third, so you might say he's the second Doctor while I'm the fourth."
"What about the first Doctor?" asked Kim. "And the third?"
"I can show them to you," said the short man, whom Kim now mentally dubbed Doctor Two, turning to the control consol. "You don't mind, do you?" he said politely.
"Oh, be my guest!" There was a touch of sarcasm in Doctor Four's voice.
The second Doctor worked at the controls and a picture appeared on the viewscreen. It showed an elderly, white-haired man walking in a garden. "That's the original Doctor, you see. Number One, so to speak."
He moved a control and the picture changed, to show a younger, elegantly-dressed man with a different face. He wore a white shirt with a ruffled front, a large black bow tie, and dark trousers. His red jacket was very stylish, and his hair ― still white ― was thick and curly.
"That's Number Three, what I have to look forward to," said Doctor Two. "Then, him." He nodded at Doctor Four.
"Now, you must admit that the nose is an improvement." Doctor Four grinned, tapping his face as he spoke.
"Will there be a fifth Doctor, someday?" Oscar asked them.
"Of course!" said Doctor Two, and Doctor Four added, "Though a bit younger at first, I think."
"But why are you," Kim pointed at Doctor Two, "and he," she pointed at Drax, "both here now?"
"Yeah, why the reunion?" Ron asked, and Rufus gave an inquisative squeak from his place on Ron's right shoulder.
"Yes, said Doctor Four. "Meeting one's self is strictly forbidden by the First Law of Time."
"Here, let me fill you in." Doctor Two stepped up beside Doctor Four and said, "Contact."
"Contact," Doctor Four answered.
Suddenly the two Doctor's faces seemed to blur. Two looked something like Four, while Four seemed to resemble Two.
"Drax, what's going on?" Ron asked the third time lord.
"Telepathic conference, lad. It's a way to swap information and get all the pukka gen, quick and clear."
"Pukka . . . gen . . . ?" Ron asked in a puzzled voice.
"That means 'correct information,'" Drax explained. "Ya see, any sort of general information is 'gen,' an' 'pukka' means 'the real thing; the best,' see?"
Ron nodded in comprehension.
"Maybe if our generals could do that we'd be able to win the war a lot quicker," Oscar remarked.
"Don't bet on it," Kim commented absently as she watched the two Doctors 'converse.' After a minute the 'blurring' stopped and the two Doctors moved apart.
"I . . . see . . . so that's what happened," said Doctor Four. He looked thoughtfully at Kim, Ron, Rufus and Oscar. "Awkward, to say the least, isn't it?"
"Yes, definitely awkward," Doctor Two commented.
"What happened? And why is it awkward?" Kim demanded.
"Well, Kimberly, it seems that you ― all of you ― are from a different universe than I am." Doctor Four shook his head. "And if I now tried to take any of you back to where I picked you up, I couldn't do it, because in my universe ― where time lords exist, you see ― none of you exist at all!"
TBC . . .
Author's Disclaimer and Notes:
The Disney Company owns the Kim Possible concept and characters.
The British Broadcasting Corporation owns the Doctor Who concept.
The term TARDIS is also copyright by the BBC.
The plot of this story is my responsibility.
Drax is singing an old English music-hall song, "Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road."
The Confederate Navy ironclad C.S.S. Virginia was a conversion of the partially-destroyed Union Navy steam frigate U.S.S. Merrimack. In spite of the name change the Confederate ironclad was almost always referred to as 'the Merrimack' by people on the Union side during the American Civil War. The Virginia was 263 feet long by 51 feet 4 inches wide, while the Union ironclad U.S.S. Monitor was only 179 feet long by 41 feet 6 inches wide. Oscar Diggs is quite right in saying the Confederate ship wouldn't fit inside the Union vessel.
The Doctors are quoting from the song "I Am the Walrus," by the Beatles.