A Mad Tea Party (1/1)
Title - A Mad Tea Party (1/1)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs
Spoilers - Through S2
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids, they're all mine.)
Summary - Brem requests a quite mad planet, and the Doctor fulfills a destiny.
Author's Notes - Thank you to jlrpuck, who beta'd this on command as usual, and to Kristin, who gifted me with the most adorable little notebook in honor of this story. Because neither jlrpuck or Kristin are particularly "Alice" people,
rosa_acicularisandarctacudaalso read this story over for me, to make sure I got the tone right, and I send thanks to them as well.
I actually researched for this story! Re-reading both "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass," which are two of my all-time favorite books. If you have never read any Carroll, you should go and read these books now. I think these books are more relevant to my daily life than any other piece of literature I've ever read (and yes, I consider them literature; no books can cast so much light on your world and not be considered literature!). If you think your world is crazy, then these are perfect books for you.
I do have another Support Stacie fic written and out to beta, but we're taking a brief Support Stacie break because next week I have a special Halloween surprise!
The icon was created by swankkat, commissioned by jlrpuckfor my birthday.
Brem was driving the Doctor a bit spare. He kept asking him riddles, and, quite frankly, the Doctor hated riddles. Riddles were…show-offy. The Doctor had known the Sphinx. She’d been a smug know-it-all.
“Can we stop with the riddles?” the Doctor finally asked Brem, after he’d failed to come up with a respectable answer for the sixth one in a row.
“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” asked Brem.
The Doctor regarded him for a long moment. “They…both…” Coming up with no response to this, he said, “Look. Why don’t you pick the next place to go? I’ll let you help pilot and everything.”
Brem looked delighted. “Really?”
“Absolutely. Well. Within reason. What catches your fancy?” Rose, the Doctor knew, would say he was setting a bad precedent. Pester him for long enough, and you pretty much got what you wanted. But he was aware his kids already knew this. This was not exactly news on the TARDIS.
“I’ve been wanting to go to Brybergo,” announced Brem.
“Brybergo?” repeated the Doctor, surprised.
“Have you been there?”
“Yes. Once. It was a bit dull, really.”
“I want to go during the Great Frymolian Era.”
“Then?” The Doctor wrinkled his nose. “But it’s the Post-Frymolian Era when you’re supposed to visit Brybergo.”
“Is that when you went?”
“Yes.”
“And you just said it was boring,” pointed out Brem, reasonably.
“Wellllllllll,” said the Doctor, and once again found himself with no good response to something his son had said. That had to stop, thought the Doctor. “But the Great Frymolian Era, Brem, is supposed to be utter madness. What’s put this idea in your head?”
Brem shrugged. “I think the madness sounds interesting. I’ve been reading all about it. It isn’t dangerous.”
“No, it’s not dangerous, it’s just…mad.”
“So are we,” said Brem.
Another good point. The Doctor opened his mouth, and then closed it without even trying to debate any further. He turned back to the controls and began setting the coordinates, and Brem happily moved to the other side of the console. By this time, the Doctor had begun to let all of the children help fly the TARDIS fairly regularly. He thought it was good for them to learn, something every Time Lord should know. And they were all brilliantly instinctive fliers. The Doctor, he had to confess, was a bit jealous that his kids had such natural ability. He attributed it to the fact that they had never known a life without a TARDIS. The Doctor, meanwhile, had had to pick up everything on the fly, literally.
When they landed, the Doctor warned Brem, “You don’t go outside without me,” and went in search of Rose and the girls. He found them in the girls’ bedroom, where Rose was supervising the production that was The Doing of Time Lord Hair.
“What sort of planet are we on?” Rose asked him. “I need to know what kind of clothes we should be wearing.”
“Brybergo. Brem’s choice. It may be a bit…mad.”
Rose looked at him, pausing in the act of giving Fortuna perfect pigtails. “Mad how?”
“The typical ways. Nothing dangerous, just…mad.”
“And how should we dress?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” The Doctor frowned, then waved his hand carelessly. “Layers, I suppose.”
This was his response every time Rose asked him. She didn’t know why she kept asking him. The Doctor seemed fairly unaffected by outside temperature. While he appeared to be far more sensitive to cold than she was-he wore his coat in the most ridiculous circumstances, sometimes-he also seemed not to have to bundle up more than his typical layers when they were somewhere genuinely cold. It was as if he hit a cold threshold much sooner than her, but never really felt the cold more intensely as the temperature dropped. She assumed her children were the same way, and they certainly never complained to her about being cold on planets where she was bundled up and stomping her feet to keep warm. So she instructed them to grab jackets and grabbed one herself.
“Where’s Brem?” she asked.
“Waiting in the control room.”
She grabbed a coat for him, too, although she knew he’d refuse it. Brem dressed in layers-long-sleeved T-shirt topped by short-sleeved T-shirt-and those seemed to be sufficient for him. Layers were apparently magical for Time Lords. There were times when she suspected Brem could have done with a coat, but it seemed to be a point of pride for him not to relent just yet.
“Are we ready?” Brem asked, jumping up from the captain’s chair where he’d been reclined as soon as the rest of the family entered the room.
“Don’t you want a coat?” Rose asked him.
He shook his head, as she had predicted. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
They stepped out onto a planet that looked, well, remarkably like England. There was a manor house off in the distance, and between them and it were formal gardens, and some rolling hills, and some small forests, and, all in all, Rose didn’t see what the Doctor meant when he said it would be mad.
She turned to him. “It looks just like home.”
“Yes, it was actually a candidate for New Earth, back when the humans were looking.”
They were suddenly passed by a quickly hopping white rabbit, who was studying a pocket watch and muttering to himself, and was dressed in a smart waistcoat. Rose’s eyes widened.
“Except that there were talking animals,” finished the Doctor.
“Talking animals?” echoed Rose, staring at where the rabbit was still hopping away. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean just what you just saw.” Hands in his pockets, the Doctor strolled past them. “Come on. Don’t just stand there gaping. Let’s explore.” He turned, walking backward for a second, so he could flash a grin at them.
Rose hurried to catch up to him, the kids settling in around them. “So is it a whole population of rabbits?”
“Mice, too,” squeaked an indignant little voice, and they all looked around abruptly to find a field mouse off to their right, sitting in the grass and combing at his whiskers. Except that he was the size of a lion more than a mouse.
“Enormous mice,” said Rose, unable to help herself.
The mouse looked even more indignant. “Am I an enormous mouse? Or are you just tiny humans?” it demanded. Then it sniffed in obvious disgust, turned his back on them, and pranced away.
Rose looked at the Doctor, utterly speechless.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said another voice. “You’ll find size is very uncertain here.” There was a man walking over to them, dressed in a rather ridiculous fashion. It looked as if he had piled as many different fabrics onto himself as possible, and he was wearing a top hat, that perched on a pile of long and straggly hair. And he was walking through what looked like a patch of enormous grass. Or was he just a tiny human?
Rose was very confused.
“See? What did I tell you?” said the Doctor. “Utter madness.” He raised his voice so the approaching man could hear him. “Hello there! I’m the Doctor.”
“Well, I can certainly see that.”
“What? How can you see that?”
“With my eyes,” retorted the man. “How do you see? And who are all these people?” He frowned at Rose and the children.
“If you can see that he’s the Doctor,” said Rose, “how come you can’t see what the rest of us are?”
“Well, of course I can see what you are. You are very tiny humans. You especially.” He pointed at Fortuna.
“I’m a child,” Fortuna informed him, hotly.
“If you say so,” said the man, mildly, in the tone of voice of one who severely doubted that Fortuna was a child.
“What makes you say we’re tiny? We’re the same size as you,” Rose told him, a bit insulted.
“Are you?” The man suddenly grabbed her hand and pressed his palm against hers. “If we were the same size, our hands would be the same size. And they’re not. Yours are smaller than mine. Therefore, I am larger. And the larger creatures have the happy honor of determining when the smaller creatures are tiny. Which I have proclaimed you to be.” The man looked very pleased with himself.
“Hold on there,” inserted the Doctor, taking the man’s hand away from Rose’s and pressing his own palm against it. The Doctor’s hand was larger. “Ah. I win.”
The man sulked. “Oh, very well. What do you win?”
“The happy honor of determining when the smaller creatures are tiny. And I haven’t encountered any tiny creatures yet.”
“You can’t win that,” said the man. “It’s dull. I know! You win…” He took his hat off and presented it to the Doctor with a flourish. “My hat.”
“Oh, I really don’t want your hat-”
“Nonsense. Of course you want my hat. Your hair is quite dreadful.”
Rose turned her laugh into a snort when the Doctor glared at her.
“But, alas,” said the man, looking quite miserable. “I am too small to place it on your head.”
“Quite right,” said the Doctor relieved.
“What are you talking about?” interjected Brem. “Of course you can reach his head. You’re quite tall enough.”
The man glared at him. “No, I’m not! I’m smaller than him!”
“Give me that hat,” said Brem, and placed it on his father’s head.
The Doctor took it off immediately. “I really don’t want the hat-”
“Not even to cover up your hideous hair?” asked the man.
“Well, your hair wants cutting,” retorted the Doctor, clearly offended.
The man gasped, hand going to his throat dramatically. “How terribly rude of you, sir!”
“Rude? You started it!”
“I have never met a giant so rude as you.”
“He’s not a giant,” said Athena.
“I wouldn’t talk if I were you, little elf,” the man told her.
“And I’m not an elf.”
“If you’re not an elf, then why does the toadstool dance in the full moon?”
There was utter silence for a moment. “What?” said Athena, finally.
“Exactly,” said the man.
“What’s your name?” demanded Athena.
“Dodgson,” he said.
Brem uttered an abrupt squeak. Rose looked at him in surprise. He was staring fixedly at the man with an odd expression on his face.
“Well, lovely to meet you, Dodgson,” said the Doctor, “but we really must be on our way-”
“Oh, no! But it’s not time yet!”
“What do you mean, It’s not time yet? What time?”
“Don’t you know Time?”
“Know time?” echoed the Doctor. “Know what time?” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “It’s-”
The man grabbed his wrist abruptly. “What manner of watch is this?” he exclaimed, in delight.
“A…timey-wimey watch.”
“Does it tell you what day of the month it is?”
“Well, yes-”
“It’s broken,” announced the man, abruptly. “It’s broken, and you must let me fix it. Come to my house for tea.”
“I don’t think that’s really very necessary-”
Dodgson burst into loud, noisy tears. And somehow the tears seemed much bigger than he was. Rose abruptly found herself in a puddle.
“Mum!” complained Athena. “I liked these shoes. They’re ruined.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Rose, calmly, “we ought to go take tea with him.”
The man stopped crying immediately. “And I shall fix your watch,” he announced, and scurried off through the grass at a run.
“Oi!” shouted the Doctor. “Bring that watch back to me! I need that!” He dashed after him, clutching the top hat that threatened to tumble off his head, which left the rest of his family with no choice but to follow him, into a small copse of trees, underneath which a table had been sent with a great many tea things.
The man skidded to an abrupt stop at the end of the table, sat down, reached for the butter-which had evidently been sitting out all day, as it was very soft-piled a great deal on a knife that he grabbed, and suddenly stuck the knife onto the back of the Doctor’s watch, spreading the butter over it liberally.
“Oi!” shouted the Doctor again, eyes widening, leaping for the man. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Dodgson went scurrying out of the Doctor’s reach, slathering butter over the watch. “I’m fixing your watch,” he pointed out, with a sniff. “Good gracious, you are quite thick, aren’t you?”
“How will you fix the watch with butter?” asked Fortuna, wide-eyed.
“It is the best butter,” announced Dodgson, and then elegantly presented the watch, dripping butter, to the Doctor.
The Doctor took it and stared at it in chagrin. “What have you done? Butter won’t suit the works.”
“The best butter,” Dodgson repeated. “Let’s have tea.” He sat at the table.
The Doctor sat, but only because he appeared to be preoccupied with the state of his watch. He was muttering under his breath, reaching for the napkin on the table. The rest of the family followed his example.
“But…” began Rose, staring at the setting she’d sat at.
“These have been used already,” Athena pointed out, miffed.
“Yes,” said the Doctor, absently. “I need a fresh place. Everyone move down.”
The Doctor stood and moved one seat to his left. Dodgson, who had been sitting on the Doctor’s right, stood and did the same, humming happily as he took the dirty place setting the Doctor had vacated. The rest of the family stood and moved one place to the left, which left them in no better position than they had been when they had sat down. The only person who benefitted at all was the Doctor, who, tipping the top hat back on his head so he could see better, was clearing butter off his watch with the clean napkin he had acquired.
“Look!” he said, waving the watch in Dodgson’s direction. “You’ve broken it.”
Dodgson peered at it. “It doesn’t look broken to me.”
“Of course it’s broken!” shrieked the Doctor, plainly furious. “It’s very broken.”
“And what do you know about it?” sniffed Dodgson. “Anyone would think you know everything about time.”
“I do know everything about time. I’m the Lord of Time,” proclaimed the Doctor, grandly, drawing himself up to his full height in the seat, which was considerable now that he had that ridiculous top hat on his head.
“Oh, good Lord,” muttered Rose, under her breath.
Dodgson’s mouth dropped. “The Lord of Time!” he exclaimed. “The Lord of Time!” He looked almost rapturous. “Tell a story.”
“A story about what?” asked the Doctor, miserably, still staring at his watch. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works.”
“It was the BEST butter,” said Dodgson, again. “A story about anything.”
“Once upon time there were three little sisters,” began Fortuna, and Brem squeaked and stared at her. She blinked at him in momentary surprise, then resumed, “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. But Brem tells better stories than me. Go on, Brem. Tell a story about the three sisters.”
“They lived in the bottom of a well,” said Brem, his voice strangled. “A treacle-well.”
Rose looked at him curiously. He had been very quiet on this adventure thus far-odd, since he had requested the place. And now he sounded quite unlike himself. She wondered if he felt okay.
“But what did they live on?” asked Fortuna, curiously.
“Treacle,” answered Brem, very deliberately.
“How can they have lived on treacle?” inquired Athena. “They’d have been ill.”
“So they were,” Brem replied, in the same very deliberate tone of voice. “VERY ill.”
Rose wondered if her entire family was being possessed by someone. She bit her lip in concern and tried to think how to extract them from this odd place.
“I wanted Time to say something,” interrupted Dodgson, looking very hard at the three children. Then he turned and looked expectantly at the Doctor.
“What?” asked the Doctor, still coaxing butter out of the works of his watch. “Oh. Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
Dodgson opened his eyes very wide and seemed to think very hard. “I believe I can guess that.”
“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?”
“Exactly so,” said Dodgson.
“Then you should say what you mean,” the Doctor told him, severely, clearly still irritated about the ruination of his watch.
“I do,” Dodgson replied, hastily, “at least-at least I mean what I say-that’s the same thing, you know.”
“Not the same thing a bit!” exclaimed the Doctor, speaking in clipped, impatient tones. “You might as well just say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”
Fortuna picked up the thread. “You might just as well say that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”
“Yes. Exactly,” said the Doctor, approvingly, and shook his watch. “Wrong!” he proclaimed, turning an accusatory glare on Dodgson. “It’s still wrong!”
“But it was the best butter!” Dodgson protested, meekly.
“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Doctor grumbled. “You shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.” The Doctor was silent for a second.
“Well-” began Rose, thinking it was far past time for them to go.
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Doctor asked Dodgson.
“No, I give it up,” Dodgson replied. “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Ask Brem, it’s his riddle.”
Dodgson looked over at Brem with interest.
“I don’t know the answer, either,” Brem confessed, and Dodgson looked crestfallen.
Then he said, abruptly, “You know about time? Time is very important when you’re singing.”
“Of course,” agreed Athena. “You must keep the time properly.”
“Exactly! Keep the time properly! Do you sing in public?” he inquired of the Doctor.
The Doctor, placing his watch in his pocket, answered, “Once. ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat.’”
“’Twinkle, Twinkle, Little what?” exclaimed Rose, alarmed.
The Doctor looked at her as if she was daft. “You know. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle-Ah,” he cut himself off. “You know, upon reflection, that’s a New Earth nursery rhyme. No wonder you don’t know it.”
Rose stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed, and then stood up. “We’re leaving.”
“But, Mum!” protested Fortuna. “We haven’t even had any tea!”
“Yes, take some more tea,” urged Dodgson, earnestly.
“We’ve had nothing yet,” pointed out Athena, “so we can’t take more.”
“You mean you can’t take less,” remarked the Doctor. “It’s very easy to take more than nothing.”
“We’re leaving,” Rose said again. “Right now. Immediately.” She resorted to the Doctor’s magic word. “Allons-y.”
Athena and Fortuna both grumbled, clearly having been very amused by the entire scene. The Doctor stood, handed Dodgson his hat, with a disapproving glare that showed the watch was not forgiven, stuck his hands in his pockets, and ambled toward where they’d parked the TARDIS, sulking a bit. Brem went very quietly and obediently, which was not at all like him.
Rose ushered them into the TARDIS, ignoring the girls’ protestations that they had not been allowed to look for the enormous kittens that might chase the enormous mice, and immediately walked over to the Doctor, who was setting coordinates.
“Ruined my watch,” he complained. “It’s going to be quite a job repairing it. Butter! In the works!”
“Doctor,” Rose said, clearly and patiently, catching his hands so he couldn’t set any more coordinates. He looked at her in surprise. “I need you to focus for me, just for a second. I need you to help me. What could it be?”
He blinked at her. “What? What could what be?”
“You’ve been…possessed…or drugged…or something. All of you. I’m not affected, it has to be a Time Lord thing, so tell me what I could do to…fix it.”
The Doctor continued to stare at her. “I…” He trailed off. “Possessed? Or drugged? Are we?” He looked at the kids, who looked equally bewildered by her diagnosis, and then back at her. “What makes you think that?”
“You’ve been acting absolutely mad,” she told them. “Mad as-“
“Hatters,” finished Brem, in a small voice.
Rose looked at him. “What?”
“Mad as hatters. We’ve been acting mad as hatters. Because he’s-“ Here Brem pointed to his father-“the Mad Hatter.”
There was a moment of silence. Every member of the family looked at the Doctor, who looked back at Brem. “The Mad what?”
“The Mad Hatter. From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. Have you ever read it?”
“No,” admitted the Doctor. “I’ve always meant to, but I’ve never gotten around to it. The TARDIS keeps hiding the book, it’s ridiculous.”
“Because you’re the Mad Hatter. She had to hide the book, because it’s your future. Can’t cross your own timeline, can’t know your own future. You’re the Mad Hatter.” Brem suddenly broke into fits of giggles.
The Doctor stared at him. “You’re right, Rose,” he said, slowly. “There’s something wrong.”
“Dodgson,” Athena said, suddenly. “Lewis Carroll’s real name. Charles Dodgson. We just met him.”
“Dodgson was an alien,” continued Brem. “From this planet. I’d just finished the Alice books, it was why I wanted to come here, it’s where I got the raven-writing desk riddle. He emigrated to Earth, wrote about his home planet, wrote about a mad tea-party he had. You’re the Mad Hatter. You’re where it all comes from.”
“I-” began the Doctor.
“I can prove it,” said Brem, and rushed to the library. They followed close behind him, and Brem pulled out a book and started reading aloud. “’I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the March Hare. ‘It was the BEST butter,’ the March Hare meekly replied. ‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.’” Brem looked up meaningfully.
“Give me that book,” said the Doctor, after a moment of silence, grabbing the book was Brem. He fanned the pages. Then he frowned. “Poor speaker!” he exclaimed. “He calls the Hatter a poor speaker during the trial of the Knave of Hearts! If I ever see that Dodgson bloke again-“
Rose started laughing. She couldn’t help it.
The Doctor frowned at her. “It’s not funny!”
“I know,” gasped Rose. “I know. I’m just thinking…If you ever see that Dodgson bloke again, off with his head!”
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Ten, Rose, OCs
Spoilers - Through S2
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids, they're all mine.)
Summary - Brem requests a quite mad planet, and the Doctor fulfills a destiny.
Author's Notes - Thank you to jlrpuck, who beta'd this on command as usual, and to Kristin, who gifted me with the most adorable little notebook in honor of this story. Because neither jlrpuck or Kristin are particularly "Alice" people,
rosa_acicularisandarctacudaalso read this story over for me, to make sure I got the tone right, and I send thanks to them as well.
I actually researched for this story! Re-reading both "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass," which are two of my all-time favorite books. If you have never read any Carroll, you should go and read these books now. I think these books are more relevant to my daily life than any other piece of literature I've ever read (and yes, I consider them literature; no books can cast so much light on your world and not be considered literature!). If you think your world is crazy, then these are perfect books for you.
I do have another Support Stacie fic written and out to beta, but we're taking a brief Support Stacie break because next week I have a special Halloween surprise!
The icon was created by swankkat, commissioned by jlrpuckfor my birthday.
Brem was driving the Doctor a bit spare. He kept asking him riddles, and, quite frankly, the Doctor hated riddles. Riddles were…show-offy. The Doctor had known the Sphinx. She’d been a smug know-it-all.
“Can we stop with the riddles?” the Doctor finally asked Brem, after he’d failed to come up with a respectable answer for the sixth one in a row.
“Why is a raven like a writing-desk?” asked Brem.
The Doctor regarded him for a long moment. “They…both…” Coming up with no response to this, he said, “Look. Why don’t you pick the next place to go? I’ll let you help pilot and everything.”
Brem looked delighted. “Really?”
“Absolutely. Well. Within reason. What catches your fancy?” Rose, the Doctor knew, would say he was setting a bad precedent. Pester him for long enough, and you pretty much got what you wanted. But he was aware his kids already knew this. This was not exactly news on the TARDIS.
“I’ve been wanting to go to Brybergo,” announced Brem.
“Brybergo?” repeated the Doctor, surprised.
“Have you been there?”
“Yes. Once. It was a bit dull, really.”
“I want to go during the Great Frymolian Era.”
“Then?” The Doctor wrinkled his nose. “But it’s the Post-Frymolian Era when you’re supposed to visit Brybergo.”
“Is that when you went?”
“Yes.”
“And you just said it was boring,” pointed out Brem, reasonably.
“Wellllllllll,” said the Doctor, and once again found himself with no good response to something his son had said. That had to stop, thought the Doctor. “But the Great Frymolian Era, Brem, is supposed to be utter madness. What’s put this idea in your head?”
Brem shrugged. “I think the madness sounds interesting. I’ve been reading all about it. It isn’t dangerous.”
“No, it’s not dangerous, it’s just…mad.”
“So are we,” said Brem.
Another good point. The Doctor opened his mouth, and then closed it without even trying to debate any further. He turned back to the controls and began setting the coordinates, and Brem happily moved to the other side of the console. By this time, the Doctor had begun to let all of the children help fly the TARDIS fairly regularly. He thought it was good for them to learn, something every Time Lord should know. And they were all brilliantly instinctive fliers. The Doctor, he had to confess, was a bit jealous that his kids had such natural ability. He attributed it to the fact that they had never known a life without a TARDIS. The Doctor, meanwhile, had had to pick up everything on the fly, literally.
When they landed, the Doctor warned Brem, “You don’t go outside without me,” and went in search of Rose and the girls. He found them in the girls’ bedroom, where Rose was supervising the production that was The Doing of Time Lord Hair.
“What sort of planet are we on?” Rose asked him. “I need to know what kind of clothes we should be wearing.”
“Brybergo. Brem’s choice. It may be a bit…mad.”
Rose looked at him, pausing in the act of giving Fortuna perfect pigtails. “Mad how?”
“The typical ways. Nothing dangerous, just…mad.”
“And how should we dress?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” The Doctor frowned, then waved his hand carelessly. “Layers, I suppose.”
This was his response every time Rose asked him. She didn’t know why she kept asking him. The Doctor seemed fairly unaffected by outside temperature. While he appeared to be far more sensitive to cold than she was-he wore his coat in the most ridiculous circumstances, sometimes-he also seemed not to have to bundle up more than his typical layers when they were somewhere genuinely cold. It was as if he hit a cold threshold much sooner than her, but never really felt the cold more intensely as the temperature dropped. She assumed her children were the same way, and they certainly never complained to her about being cold on planets where she was bundled up and stomping her feet to keep warm. So she instructed them to grab jackets and grabbed one herself.
“Where’s Brem?” she asked.
“Waiting in the control room.”
She grabbed a coat for him, too, although she knew he’d refuse it. Brem dressed in layers-long-sleeved T-shirt topped by short-sleeved T-shirt-and those seemed to be sufficient for him. Layers were apparently magical for Time Lords. There were times when she suspected Brem could have done with a coat, but it seemed to be a point of pride for him not to relent just yet.
“Are we ready?” Brem asked, jumping up from the captain’s chair where he’d been reclined as soon as the rest of the family entered the room.
“Don’t you want a coat?” Rose asked him.
He shook his head, as she had predicted. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
They stepped out onto a planet that looked, well, remarkably like England. There was a manor house off in the distance, and between them and it were formal gardens, and some rolling hills, and some small forests, and, all in all, Rose didn’t see what the Doctor meant when he said it would be mad.
She turned to him. “It looks just like home.”
“Yes, it was actually a candidate for New Earth, back when the humans were looking.”
They were suddenly passed by a quickly hopping white rabbit, who was studying a pocket watch and muttering to himself, and was dressed in a smart waistcoat. Rose’s eyes widened.
“Except that there were talking animals,” finished the Doctor.
“Talking animals?” echoed Rose, staring at where the rabbit was still hopping away. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean just what you just saw.” Hands in his pockets, the Doctor strolled past them. “Come on. Don’t just stand there gaping. Let’s explore.” He turned, walking backward for a second, so he could flash a grin at them.
Rose hurried to catch up to him, the kids settling in around them. “So is it a whole population of rabbits?”
“Mice, too,” squeaked an indignant little voice, and they all looked around abruptly to find a field mouse off to their right, sitting in the grass and combing at his whiskers. Except that he was the size of a lion more than a mouse.
“Enormous mice,” said Rose, unable to help herself.
The mouse looked even more indignant. “Am I an enormous mouse? Or are you just tiny humans?” it demanded. Then it sniffed in obvious disgust, turned his back on them, and pranced away.
Rose looked at the Doctor, utterly speechless.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said another voice. “You’ll find size is very uncertain here.” There was a man walking over to them, dressed in a rather ridiculous fashion. It looked as if he had piled as many different fabrics onto himself as possible, and he was wearing a top hat, that perched on a pile of long and straggly hair. And he was walking through what looked like a patch of enormous grass. Or was he just a tiny human?
Rose was very confused.
“See? What did I tell you?” said the Doctor. “Utter madness.” He raised his voice so the approaching man could hear him. “Hello there! I’m the Doctor.”
“Well, I can certainly see that.”
“What? How can you see that?”
“With my eyes,” retorted the man. “How do you see? And who are all these people?” He frowned at Rose and the children.
“If you can see that he’s the Doctor,” said Rose, “how come you can’t see what the rest of us are?”
“Well, of course I can see what you are. You are very tiny humans. You especially.” He pointed at Fortuna.
“I’m a child,” Fortuna informed him, hotly.
“If you say so,” said the man, mildly, in the tone of voice of one who severely doubted that Fortuna was a child.
“What makes you say we’re tiny? We’re the same size as you,” Rose told him, a bit insulted.
“Are you?” The man suddenly grabbed her hand and pressed his palm against hers. “If we were the same size, our hands would be the same size. And they’re not. Yours are smaller than mine. Therefore, I am larger. And the larger creatures have the happy honor of determining when the smaller creatures are tiny. Which I have proclaimed you to be.” The man looked very pleased with himself.
“Hold on there,” inserted the Doctor, taking the man’s hand away from Rose’s and pressing his own palm against it. The Doctor’s hand was larger. “Ah. I win.”
The man sulked. “Oh, very well. What do you win?”
“The happy honor of determining when the smaller creatures are tiny. And I haven’t encountered any tiny creatures yet.”
“You can’t win that,” said the man. “It’s dull. I know! You win…” He took his hat off and presented it to the Doctor with a flourish. “My hat.”
“Oh, I really don’t want your hat-”
“Nonsense. Of course you want my hat. Your hair is quite dreadful.”
Rose turned her laugh into a snort when the Doctor glared at her.
“But, alas,” said the man, looking quite miserable. “I am too small to place it on your head.”
“Quite right,” said the Doctor relieved.
“What are you talking about?” interjected Brem. “Of course you can reach his head. You’re quite tall enough.”
The man glared at him. “No, I’m not! I’m smaller than him!”
“Give me that hat,” said Brem, and placed it on his father’s head.
The Doctor took it off immediately. “I really don’t want the hat-”
“Not even to cover up your hideous hair?” asked the man.
“Well, your hair wants cutting,” retorted the Doctor, clearly offended.
The man gasped, hand going to his throat dramatically. “How terribly rude of you, sir!”
“Rude? You started it!”
“I have never met a giant so rude as you.”
“He’s not a giant,” said Athena.
“I wouldn’t talk if I were you, little elf,” the man told her.
“And I’m not an elf.”
“If you’re not an elf, then why does the toadstool dance in the full moon?”
There was utter silence for a moment. “What?” said Athena, finally.
“Exactly,” said the man.
“What’s your name?” demanded Athena.
“Dodgson,” he said.
Brem uttered an abrupt squeak. Rose looked at him in surprise. He was staring fixedly at the man with an odd expression on his face.
“Well, lovely to meet you, Dodgson,” said the Doctor, “but we really must be on our way-”
“Oh, no! But it’s not time yet!”
“What do you mean, It’s not time yet? What time?”
“Don’t you know Time?”
“Know time?” echoed the Doctor. “Know what time?” He glanced at the watch on his wrist. “It’s-”
The man grabbed his wrist abruptly. “What manner of watch is this?” he exclaimed, in delight.
“A…timey-wimey watch.”
“Does it tell you what day of the month it is?”
“Well, yes-”
“It’s broken,” announced the man, abruptly. “It’s broken, and you must let me fix it. Come to my house for tea.”
“I don’t think that’s really very necessary-”
Dodgson burst into loud, noisy tears. And somehow the tears seemed much bigger than he was. Rose abruptly found herself in a puddle.
“Mum!” complained Athena. “I liked these shoes. They’re ruined.”
“Perhaps,” suggested Rose, calmly, “we ought to go take tea with him.”
The man stopped crying immediately. “And I shall fix your watch,” he announced, and scurried off through the grass at a run.
“Oi!” shouted the Doctor. “Bring that watch back to me! I need that!” He dashed after him, clutching the top hat that threatened to tumble off his head, which left the rest of his family with no choice but to follow him, into a small copse of trees, underneath which a table had been sent with a great many tea things.
The man skidded to an abrupt stop at the end of the table, sat down, reached for the butter-which had evidently been sitting out all day, as it was very soft-piled a great deal on a knife that he grabbed, and suddenly stuck the knife onto the back of the Doctor’s watch, spreading the butter over it liberally.
“Oi!” shouted the Doctor again, eyes widening, leaping for the man. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Dodgson went scurrying out of the Doctor’s reach, slathering butter over the watch. “I’m fixing your watch,” he pointed out, with a sniff. “Good gracious, you are quite thick, aren’t you?”
“How will you fix the watch with butter?” asked Fortuna, wide-eyed.
“It is the best butter,” announced Dodgson, and then elegantly presented the watch, dripping butter, to the Doctor.
The Doctor took it and stared at it in chagrin. “What have you done? Butter won’t suit the works.”
“The best butter,” Dodgson repeated. “Let’s have tea.” He sat at the table.
The Doctor sat, but only because he appeared to be preoccupied with the state of his watch. He was muttering under his breath, reaching for the napkin on the table. The rest of the family followed his example.
“But…” began Rose, staring at the setting she’d sat at.
“These have been used already,” Athena pointed out, miffed.
“Yes,” said the Doctor, absently. “I need a fresh place. Everyone move down.”
The Doctor stood and moved one seat to his left. Dodgson, who had been sitting on the Doctor’s right, stood and did the same, humming happily as he took the dirty place setting the Doctor had vacated. The rest of the family stood and moved one place to the left, which left them in no better position than they had been when they had sat down. The only person who benefitted at all was the Doctor, who, tipping the top hat back on his head so he could see better, was clearing butter off his watch with the clean napkin he had acquired.
“Look!” he said, waving the watch in Dodgson’s direction. “You’ve broken it.”
Dodgson peered at it. “It doesn’t look broken to me.”
“Of course it’s broken!” shrieked the Doctor, plainly furious. “It’s very broken.”
“And what do you know about it?” sniffed Dodgson. “Anyone would think you know everything about time.”
“I do know everything about time. I’m the Lord of Time,” proclaimed the Doctor, grandly, drawing himself up to his full height in the seat, which was considerable now that he had that ridiculous top hat on his head.
“Oh, good Lord,” muttered Rose, under her breath.
Dodgson’s mouth dropped. “The Lord of Time!” he exclaimed. “The Lord of Time!” He looked almost rapturous. “Tell a story.”
“A story about what?” asked the Doctor, miserably, still staring at his watch. “I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works.”
“It was the BEST butter,” said Dodgson, again. “A story about anything.”
“Once upon time there were three little sisters,” began Fortuna, and Brem squeaked and stared at her. She blinked at him in momentary surprise, then resumed, “and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie. But Brem tells better stories than me. Go on, Brem. Tell a story about the three sisters.”
“They lived in the bottom of a well,” said Brem, his voice strangled. “A treacle-well.”
Rose looked at him curiously. He had been very quiet on this adventure thus far-odd, since he had requested the place. And now he sounded quite unlike himself. She wondered if he felt okay.
“But what did they live on?” asked Fortuna, curiously.
“Treacle,” answered Brem, very deliberately.
“How can they have lived on treacle?” inquired Athena. “They’d have been ill.”
“So they were,” Brem replied, in the same very deliberate tone of voice. “VERY ill.”
Rose wondered if her entire family was being possessed by someone. She bit her lip in concern and tried to think how to extract them from this odd place.
“I wanted Time to say something,” interrupted Dodgson, looking very hard at the three children. Then he turned and looked expectantly at the Doctor.
“What?” asked the Doctor, still coaxing butter out of the works of his watch. “Oh. Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”
Dodgson opened his eyes very wide and seemed to think very hard. “I believe I can guess that.”
“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?”
“Exactly so,” said Dodgson.
“Then you should say what you mean,” the Doctor told him, severely, clearly still irritated about the ruination of his watch.
“I do,” Dodgson replied, hastily, “at least-at least I mean what I say-that’s the same thing, you know.”
“Not the same thing a bit!” exclaimed the Doctor, speaking in clipped, impatient tones. “You might as well just say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”
Fortuna picked up the thread. “You might just as well say that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”
“Yes. Exactly,” said the Doctor, approvingly, and shook his watch. “Wrong!” he proclaimed, turning an accusatory glare on Dodgson. “It’s still wrong!”
“But it was the best butter!” Dodgson protested, meekly.
“Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,” the Doctor grumbled. “You shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.” The Doctor was silent for a second.
“Well-” began Rose, thinking it was far past time for them to go.
“Have you guessed the riddle yet?” the Doctor asked Dodgson.
“No, I give it up,” Dodgson replied. “What’s the answer?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea. Ask Brem, it’s his riddle.”
Dodgson looked over at Brem with interest.
“I don’t know the answer, either,” Brem confessed, and Dodgson looked crestfallen.
Then he said, abruptly, “You know about time? Time is very important when you’re singing.”
“Of course,” agreed Athena. “You must keep the time properly.”
“Exactly! Keep the time properly! Do you sing in public?” he inquired of the Doctor.
The Doctor, placing his watch in his pocket, answered, “Once. ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat.’”
“’Twinkle, Twinkle, Little what?” exclaimed Rose, alarmed.
The Doctor looked at her as if she was daft. “You know. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you’re at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea-tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle-Ah,” he cut himself off. “You know, upon reflection, that’s a New Earth nursery rhyme. No wonder you don’t know it.”
Rose stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed, and then stood up. “We’re leaving.”
“But, Mum!” protested Fortuna. “We haven’t even had any tea!”
“Yes, take some more tea,” urged Dodgson, earnestly.
“We’ve had nothing yet,” pointed out Athena, “so we can’t take more.”
“You mean you can’t take less,” remarked the Doctor. “It’s very easy to take more than nothing.”
“We’re leaving,” Rose said again. “Right now. Immediately.” She resorted to the Doctor’s magic word. “Allons-y.”
Athena and Fortuna both grumbled, clearly having been very amused by the entire scene. The Doctor stood, handed Dodgson his hat, with a disapproving glare that showed the watch was not forgiven, stuck his hands in his pockets, and ambled toward where they’d parked the TARDIS, sulking a bit. Brem went very quietly and obediently, which was not at all like him.
Rose ushered them into the TARDIS, ignoring the girls’ protestations that they had not been allowed to look for the enormous kittens that might chase the enormous mice, and immediately walked over to the Doctor, who was setting coordinates.
“Ruined my watch,” he complained. “It’s going to be quite a job repairing it. Butter! In the works!”
“Doctor,” Rose said, clearly and patiently, catching his hands so he couldn’t set any more coordinates. He looked at her in surprise. “I need you to focus for me, just for a second. I need you to help me. What could it be?”
He blinked at her. “What? What could what be?”
“You’ve been…possessed…or drugged…or something. All of you. I’m not affected, it has to be a Time Lord thing, so tell me what I could do to…fix it.”
The Doctor continued to stare at her. “I…” He trailed off. “Possessed? Or drugged? Are we?” He looked at the kids, who looked equally bewildered by her diagnosis, and then back at her. “What makes you think that?”
“You’ve been acting absolutely mad,” she told them. “Mad as-“
“Hatters,” finished Brem, in a small voice.
Rose looked at him. “What?”
“Mad as hatters. We’ve been acting mad as hatters. Because he’s-“ Here Brem pointed to his father-“the Mad Hatter.”
There was a moment of silence. Every member of the family looked at the Doctor, who looked back at Brem. “The Mad what?”
“The Mad Hatter. From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll. Have you ever read it?”
“No,” admitted the Doctor. “I’ve always meant to, but I’ve never gotten around to it. The TARDIS keeps hiding the book, it’s ridiculous.”
“Because you’re the Mad Hatter. She had to hide the book, because it’s your future. Can’t cross your own timeline, can’t know your own future. You’re the Mad Hatter.” Brem suddenly broke into fits of giggles.
The Doctor stared at him. “You’re right, Rose,” he said, slowly. “There’s something wrong.”
“Dodgson,” Athena said, suddenly. “Lewis Carroll’s real name. Charles Dodgson. We just met him.”
“Dodgson was an alien,” continued Brem. “From this planet. I’d just finished the Alice books, it was why I wanted to come here, it’s where I got the raven-writing desk riddle. He emigrated to Earth, wrote about his home planet, wrote about a mad tea-party he had. You’re the Mad Hatter. You’re where it all comes from.”
“I-” began the Doctor.
“I can prove it,” said Brem, and rushed to the library. They followed close behind him, and Brem pulled out a book and started reading aloud. “’I told you butter wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the March Hare. ‘It was the BEST butter,’ the March Hare meekly replied. ‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.’” Brem looked up meaningfully.
“Give me that book,” said the Doctor, after a moment of silence, grabbing the book was Brem. He fanned the pages. Then he frowned. “Poor speaker!” he exclaimed. “He calls the Hatter a poor speaker during the trial of the Knave of Hearts! If I ever see that Dodgson bloke again-“
Rose started laughing. She couldn’t help it.
The Doctor frowned at her. “It’s not funny!”
“I know,” gasped Rose. “I know. I’m just thinking…If you ever see that Dodgson bloke again, off with his head!”