Paul Gadzikowski
scarfman@iglou.com

This Time Round

From - Wed Jul 19 22:56:06 2000
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Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2000 17:33:41 -0400
From: PAUL GADZIKOWSKI 
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Subject: THANKS, I NEEDED THAT 1/1 TTR
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THANKS, I NEEDED THAT 1/1 TTR
by Paul Gadzikowski
DOCTOR WHO series characters and concepts copyright BBC tv
THIS TIME ROUND concept by Tyler Dion, after Kielle

> PAUL GADZIKOWSKI wrote:
> : The Doctor *is* my Mary Sue.

     "Did you see this?" said Peri.
     Doctor Six was sitting by himself at the This Time Round bar. Usually
of course he sat with himselves at hises' usual table; but th/he/ir/self/ves
could never seem to get through an evening without all ganging up on one, and
tonight seemed to have been Doctor Six's turn, in an argument about the
effect of time travel on personal pronouns.
     Now he looked up from his carrot juice (adding injury to insult, Mel was
tending bar). Peri was standing next to him, in one of her leotard-and-shorts
outfits as in Season 22, but this one was a pastel orange, and her hair was
longer as in Season 23 and pulled back in a pony tail. She had an adwc post
displayed on one of the tavern's laptops. "Mph," he said. "So?"
     "He says you're the author avatar in his fanfiction," Peri belabored,
sitting down on the stool next to his.
     "He's said that before. Again: So?"
     "He also says," said Peri, "that he's going to write me stories for the
newsgroup the way other unpopular companions get featured by authors who like
them." Oddly she failed to emphasize, as she usually did, the word *says* so
that what it really meant was *promised but is taking his sweet time about
it*. She was speaking in unusually low tones.
     Doctor Six smothered a laugh. "You're very popular. On at least two
mailing lists I know of." Third time's the charm: "So?"
     Peri leaned forward, displaying her decolletage. "So: author avatars
have romances with favored companions."
     Doctor Six involuntarily expelled a mouthful of carrot juice with a
great deal of force. Serendipitously Mel was passing in front of him just at
that moment. Unfortunately she was wearing her outfit from "Time and the
Rani", and the carrot juice just rolled off the white trousers leaving them
as spotless as the Lacaertian dirt had.
     "Romance??" Doctor Six sputtered. "Romance?! After the way we shouted
at each other all through Season 22?! Rather like this??!!"
     "There has to be a reason we stuck with each other anyway," Peri said,
smiling in a manner that made Doctor Six uncomfortable. She stood from her
barstool and moved closer to him, tracing the edge of one ear with a
fingertip.
     "Because I was always right, and you thrived on my genius!" Realization
and horror dawned. "You've just come from appearing in one of those mailing
list stories, haven't you?"
     "How ever did you guess?" she blew in his ear.
     "You haven't reverted from fantasy-girl mode yet, have you?"
     "Maybe not ..."
     "It isn't 'romance' you're really after, is it!"
     Peri grabbed Doctor Six by the lapels of his frock coat and somehow
lifted him into a supine position on the bar. In an instant she had climbed
on top of him and was undoing his tie, and pressing certain portions of her
anatomy evocatively and provocatively against certain portions of his.
     "Mel!!" screamed Doctor Six.
     It seemed like forever before Mel took action. Peri already had Doctor
Six's waistcoat open and was working on the shirt buttons when he suddenly
found himself through the air like an asprin down a throat. He was reminded
of Winnie-the-Pooh's interior monologue when falling into the heffalump trap:
"I'm flying. What Owl does. I wonder how you stop -"; but Doctor Six was
unable to get through it all before he hit the tavern floor, though Pooh's
fall couldn't have been any longer.
     Doctor Six regained his feet with considerable difficulty. His entire
suit was now waterlogged, and his teeth were chattering from a chill Doctor
Four would have shrugged off (in fact, did, in "Seeds of Death", or "of
Doom"; Doctor Six could never remember which was which, but begrudged it to
Doctor Four whenever "Attack of the Cybermen" was screened), from the ice
water that Mel had spilt from the tub suspended at the ceiling. It was only
one of a network of such tubs throughout the tavern's main room, overturnable
by levers behind the bar, installed specifically against those occasions when
Peri arrived in the bar too soon after being recruited into one of those
mailing list stories. 
     Levering himself up on a barstool in the suddenly conversationless
tavern, Doctor Six discovered that Peri was already upright again. Well, she
had less clothing to weigh her down. She too was sopping wet, her bangs and
ponytail in rattails, looking utterly miserable and dejected. (Though the
effect of the cold water on her upper torso and the clothing thereupon
reminded Doctor Six of the reason that there were never wet t-shirt contests
at This Time Round, i.e. that no other prospective contestant was unaware who
the winner would be. Every time.)
     "I did it again, didn't I?" she said in a small voice.
     "Yesss," said Doctor Six.
     "I didn't mean to." Peri wrung her hands and fidgeted, blushing.
     "Now now, don't whine," said Doctor Six, putting an arm around her
shoulders and sitting with her at the bar as the rest of the patrons turned
back to their own concerns. "Two beers, Mel." Mel served a beer and a carrot
juice.
     "What did I do?" Peri asked.
     "You, ah - Actually," said Doctor Six, "you were complaining again about
that fellow who says he wants to write stories about you."
     "I've *got* fellows who write stories about me." She dejectedly took a
gulp of beer.
     "Stories where you keep your pants on."
     "That's not even true of all *his*," Peri moaned. She looked back at
him, appearing so forlorn, so vulnerable ... then she frowned. "What?"
     Doctor Six blinked. "'What?', what?"
     "What were you looking at me like that for?"
     "Like what?"
     "I don't know! I never saw you looking that before so I don't know what
it meant! That's why I asked!"
     "Well I assure you I have no idea either," said Doctor Six, believing it
when he said it.
     "Are you sure I didn't do or say anything weird?" Peri snapped.
     "Nothing. Nothing at all."

FIN

Summary for archivist:
Humor, TTR, the author's Peri arc
Doctor Six, Peri; Mel
Even after anime crossovers, cold water still also does what it always did.

--
   Paul Gadzikowski   http://members.iglou.com/scarfman: King Arthur in Time
                      and Space - The Daily Cartoons - DOCTOR WHO, STAR TREK,
  scarfman@iglou.com  BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, M*A*S*H - Archy the
                      Cockroach - New cartoons weekly

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