Fic: A Wiggly Spacey Timey Wimey Adventure
Title: A Wiggly Spacey Timey Wimey Adventure
Fandom: The Wiggles/Doctor Who
Pairing: There are no pairings. But if you squint you might see undertones of slashy polyamory and, if you squint even harder, possibly potential Doctor/Master.
Rating: G or PG
Warning: It’s crack! Do I need to warn for crack?
Word Count: 2,500
Disclaimer: No slander intended. These folks do not belong to me, this piece is for fun not profit. Lyrics used without permission, sorry Jonathan Coulton and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. I owe you guys a drink or something, ok?
Summary: There were things Wiggles did for each other. There was an unspoken code.
Author’s Notes: My buddy skyward-bound has been poorly of late. Collapsed lungs sound like no fun at all. They sound like minus fun. So I offered to write something for her and she gave me the prompt: "Ten, the Master, non explicit (but I don't mind hints/snuggles - not that the Master is a very snuggly person), and the Wiggles." Er, I don’t know what you had in mind, probably more Doctor Who, less Wiggles, right? TOO LATE NOW! For some visual aids and background Wiggle information and speculation on the alternate Wiggleverse, see my other post here. Thanks to nixwilliams for the speedy beta. And remember, comments/feedback = love.
The soundtrack to the dream was the strangest whirring noise. An otherworldly mechanical sound, part breathing and alive, and something else as well. Something working at the impossible, doing something even his dreamworld couldn’t imagine. He resolved to think about it later. It was a resolution he would forget as soon as he woke up.
Jeff didn’t know how it happened. He was a children’s performer, television and stage. He liked dogs, and cups of tea, and the way segments of orange felt in your mouth, bursting with juice, sweet and tangy. He liked sleeping. He’d made more money than he’d ever thought he could make. And now he was in space.
He woke up. The pillow was red, the sheets yellow, the bedspread blue. It was a bunk bed and he was sleeping on the top, as usual. He rolled over. He blinked and looked around. The others were doing things, moving around in an energetic way, pressing buttons, working dials, pulling levers, checking read-outs. Someone was talking. It was a voice he didn’t recognise.
“But how? How did you - it’s incredible - but how?”
Everything was bright, flooded with white light, made with vivid colours: blue, red, yellow, green, there was a purple chair, an orange trim, a set of pink buttons. It was the set of a spaceship, he thought, for a segment of the show that he’d forgotten about. That must be it.
“And this really is a working thrust-collatorator? Hooked up to a-” the voice was saying, “It’s genius!”
Jeff sat up. At the end of the bunk was a small round window surrounded by a green frame. It was dark outside. Jeff crawled to the end of the bed and brought his face up close to the window. It was dark outside and there was no ground, no trees, no buildings, no street, no nothing. Not even the other side of the set, the scaffolding holding it all together, or a person holding a prop, waiting in the wings. There was nothing. A vast expanse of space, the occasional pinpoint of faraway light, but other than that, emptiness.
“And this circuit, I’ve never seen anything like this before…”
Jeff pulled away from the window. He could hear Anthony talking, explaining something in his patient, cheerful way.
“Um?” said Jeff.
“Oh, Jeff,” said Murray, spinning round and approaching him with a smile. “You’re awake.”
“Yes,” said Jeff, with uncertainty. “At least, I think I am. What’s going on?”
“We’re in space,” said Murray.
“We are?” asked Jeff.
“Yes,” said Murray and went back to an orange and red control panel.
“How did you know to…?” the unfamiliar voice was saying. Jeff looked around to try and locate who was speaking. Anthony was standing by a big screen which was surrounded with a yellow frame, pointing at a complex series of lines, curves and dots on the screen, saying something to a man next to him. The man was skinny and scruffy, wearing a long brown trench coat and Converse shoes. He had brown hair that stuck in all directions and brown eyes. His face twitched as he looked from the screen to Anthony and back again, over the top of his square black-framed glasses.
“Um,” said Jeff again, for lack of anything else to say.
Anthony noticed him and broke off from his dialogue with the stranger. “Oh, hi Jeff! You’re awake!” he said, smiling. “Jeff, this is The Doctor. The Doctor, this is Jeff. Jeff likes to sleep.”
The Doctor looked at Jeff. “Oh, yes, sleep is important. Sometimes.” The Doctor grinned and Jeff felt suddenly that this man was not quite all there. Jeff gave the slightest shake of his head and the feeling settled uncomfortably within him.
They were sitting around a (mauve) table, drinking cups of tea and eating segments of fresh orange. It was something they did nearly every day, sometimes at meetings, sometimes for a break, sometimes when they were trying to write and needed something to get their brains working. It was the most normal thing in the world for them. If only, thought Jeff, it felt normal.
The others were talking and slurping tea and munching orange. Jeff paused to pick some pith from between his teeth and he noticed that The Doctor was sitting in Sam’s seat. Sam was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Sam?” he said.
“Huh?” said Anthony.
“What?” said Murray.
“Who’s Sam?” said The Doctor.
The three Wiggles looked at each other.
“I saw him…” began Anthony. “Earlier today…”
“I thought I saw him too,” said Jeff. “When I first woke up. His yellow top…”
“Yes?” said Murray.
“It was from behind,” Jeff said.
“Oh,” said Anthony.
Murray said a word they’re not allowed to say on television or on stage. There was a pause. The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and closed it. He took a sip of tea.
“Good tea, this,” he said conversationally.
“Sorry,” said Jeff, “But who is this guy again?”
They explored the spaceship, trundling silent and glum down lilac corridors, through magenta doors, into lime alcoves. They passed a blue box, which The Doctor patted fondly with a soft hand. When Jeff began asking about it, Murray just shook his head and Jeff fell silent. Sam was the newest member, the replacement for Greg, who was sick, back on Earth. But that didn’t make Sam any less of a Wiggle. There were things you did for each other. There was an unspoken code.
They rounded a cobalt corner and heard a noise coming from the end of an apricot hallway. They exchanged glances and ran down the corridor towards the sound. Stumbling into a fuchsia storage room, they found Sam tethered to the floor and the ceiling with turquoise ropes around his hands and feet. He had a matching turquoise gag running through his mouth. Anthony removed the gag, and Jeff and Murray worked on the ropes holding his hands and feet. Out of the corner of his eye, Jeff could see The Doctor leaning in the doorway, observing.
“What happened?” asked Anthony, “Are you alright?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” said Sam, his voice slightly hoarse. “All the better for seeing you guys!” He coughed.
“What happened?” said Anthony again.
“There was this guy,” Sam said, “He told me he was with the crew and we were running out of time and he needed my help to work on the spaceship, the set for the spaceship - I didn’t know we needed a set for a spaceship, but I thought maybe someone had just forgot to tell me. Or they’d - you’d - told me and I’d forgotten, I’ve been trying so hard to learn all the songs that sometimes I think more about that than other stuff. Anyway, he kept saying the word ‘sonic’, we gotta make it ‘sonic’ he said and he had this thing, this screwdriver thing that he was using to make the set and it was all happening so fast and some of the crew were there helping and then they weren’t there and then…”
Sam’s hands and feet were free by then and the other three Wiggles standing close around him, offering him support, the gentle pressure of fingertips on his arm and the small of his back, an arm for him to lean on should he need it. Sam rubbed the back of his head with his hand.
“Go on,” said Murray quietly.
“And then - nothing,” said Sam. “I think he must have clocked me one, the bastard. Because next thing I know I wake up here and I’ve got a throbbing headache.” He gave them a small smile and added softly, “I’m bloody glad to see you guys, did I mention?”
For a moment they did nothing, just standing, listening to the soft whir of the spaceship’s engines.
“Ok,” said Anthony eventually, “Do we know who this guy is?” He looked at Sam.
Sam furrowed his brow. “He kept calling himself The Master,” he said and then tripping over his own words, “What is that sound? It’s like an engine or something, beneath us?”
“It is an engine,” said Anthony, but The Doctor spoke over him.
“The Master?!” he cried.
“Yeah, something like that,” replied Sam, then looking back at Anthony, he asked, “An engine for what?”
“A spaceship,” said Anthony, and again The Doctor spoke over him.
“The Master?” he said, his voice agitated. “No, it can’t be. You must have got it wrong.”
Sam kept his eyes fixed on Anthony’s face. “No,” he said, “I’m pretty sure he called himself The Master,” and, in a lower voice to Anthony, he said, “What do you mean ‘a spaceship’? You don’t mean a spaceship, though, do you? And who is this guy?” He tilted his head in The Doctor’s direction.
Jeff tried to keep his face neutral. He felt Murray dig an elbow into his side in warning.
“No,” said Anthony in his patient, cheerful way. “I do actually mean a spaceship. We are in space, right at this very moment.”
“Aaah, okay…” said Sam slowly, his eyes shifting from Anthony’s face to Murray’s to Jeff’s and back to Anthony’s, a smile gradually breaking out over his face. “Right…” he said.
“And that guy over there,” continued Anthony, “is The Doctor. I don’t actually know anything more about him, but he seems to know more about flying spaceships than I do and he was rather intrigued about our one.”
“Our what?” said Sam, grinning.
“Our spaceship,” said Anthony.
“Right,” said Sam, “Our spaceship.” He gave a small chuckle.
Something suddenly occurred to Jeff. “Hold on a moment!” he said, “Anthony, how do you even know how to drive a spaceship? Or pilot one, or whatever the word is.”
“Oh,” said Anthony, “I was an astronaut before I was a Wiggle.”
“You were not!” laughed Murray.
Anthony just shrugged. Murray and Jeff exchanged glances. And then they were all laughing.
Back in the dining section of the spaceship, Sam was drinking tea and leaning by an oblong, yellow-framed window that looked out into the vast expanse of space. Jeff approached him, eating a segment of orange.
“We really are in space,” Sam said to him.
“Yeah,” said Jeff. “Apparently we are.”
Sam looked at him, examining his face. Jeff made an almost-imperceptible shake of his head, as if to say I don’t know or Don’t ask me. Whatever he was trying to say, he knew Sam understood because Sam raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, not breaking their gaze.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said The Doctor, walking towards them, holding out his hands diplomatically. “I feel like without a skivvy I’m losing some deeper level of communication, but never mind. I just need to know, did this man really call himself The Master? Can you think about it for me? Think about it hard.”
Jeff looked out the window into the darkness of space. He wondered where Earth was in relation to them, how far they were from home. He heard Sam answer The Doctor with a level, certain voice and Jeff felt proud of him.
“Yes,” said Sam. “He called himself The Master.”
“Are you sure?” asked The Doctor again.
“Yes, I am,” Sam replied. “I’ve thought about it and I know I’m remembering it correctly.”
Jeff looked around. The Doctor was shaking his head. He felt Sam’s hand reach out and squeeze him on the arm.
“Why is it so hard to believe,” came a voice from somewhere, “that it’s me, Doctor?”
The Doctor’s head spun around. There was a man leaning in the doorway. He was wearing a black leather jacket, there was a slight smile on his lips and his blue eyes were fixed on The Doctor.
“No,” said The Doctor, disbelieving.
“Yes,” said The Master, “And I’m the newest member of their little band. I’m the Black Wiggle.”
The Master’s eyes flicked to the faces of the others. “Why so glum?” he called, his eyes locking back onto The Doctor’s. “Though,” he continued in his sing-song tone, “Maybe Leather Wiggle would be a better name. Or Dark Wiggle. Oh yes, I like that one.” He cocked one eyebrow. “Or Bondage Wiggle,” he said, shooting a glance at Sam, “Eh, Sam? Do you like that one?”
Sam looked angry but it was Murray who spoke first.
“No!” he said.
“Oh?” said The Master mildly.
“You are not a Wiggle, nor will you ever be one,” Murray said firmly.
“Oh,” said The Master, smiling, “But you fit so nicely into my plans for world domination. You have the little ones quite enthralled. And through you, we can control them, brainwash them, make them think whatever we want them to think!” He waved his hands through the air. “And they are the future. And the future, quite simply, will be mine!”
Sam looked sceptical, but again Murray spoke.
“No,” he said, firmly.
“Oh?” said the Master, “I can do you a song, if you’d like? If you want to feel like I’ve gone through the proper channels, like I’ve auditioned for your little gang.” The Master cleared his throat and started singing. “Welcome to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain…” He was smiling.
“No,” said Murray again.
“Oh, you don’t like that one?” said The Master. “Ok. I’ve prepared another,” and then, singing, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste…”
“No,” said Murray and Anthony at the same time.
“Oh?” said The Master, “Wha-”
“No,” said all four Wiggles at the same time.
“O-” said The Master.
“No,” said all four Wiggles and The Doctor at the same time.
There was silence. The Master opened his mouth.
“No,” they said all together.
Jeff pressed a whole orange into The Doctor’s hands. “Thank you,” he said in a low, earnest voice, “Thank you for, well, you know. Taking him off our hands.”
The Doctor nodded.
“And sorry,” said Jeff, “About being a bit, er, tetchy with you before. I just-”
“It’s OK,” said The Doctor. “Really. It’s fine.”
Jeff smiled. He reached behind him for another orange, attempting to put it into the pocket of The Doctor’s oversized trench coat. The Doctor laughed. “I’m more of a banana person myself!”
The Wiggles stood together, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, fingers looped through fingers.
“You’ve got him contained in there?” asked Murray, nodding towards the TARDIS.
“Oh yes,” said The Doctor. “I’ve got him.”
Murray nodded. “OK,” he said.
“Good bye,” said The Doctor.
“Bye!” said the Wiggles, in chorus.
The Doctor stepped inside the TARDIS and closed the door. The sound of the TARDIS dematerialising made Jeff reach for something buried in his memories.
“I’ve heard that sound before,” he said.
“Oh yes?” said Anthony.
Jeff’s brow furrowed in thought. “No,” he shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The TARDIS whirred rhythmically out of existence.
“Tea?” said Sam.
“Why not?” said Murray.
Fandom: The Wiggles/Doctor Who
Pairing: There are no pairings. But if you squint you might see undertones of slashy polyamory and, if you squint even harder, possibly potential Doctor/Master.
Rating: G or PG
Warning: It’s crack! Do I need to warn for crack?
Word Count: 2,500
Disclaimer: No slander intended. These folks do not belong to me, this piece is for fun not profit. Lyrics used without permission, sorry Jonathan Coulton and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. I owe you guys a drink or something, ok?
Summary: There were things Wiggles did for each other. There was an unspoken code.
Author’s Notes: My buddy skyward-bound has been poorly of late. Collapsed lungs sound like no fun at all. They sound like minus fun. So I offered to write something for her and she gave me the prompt: "Ten, the Master, non explicit (but I don't mind hints/snuggles - not that the Master is a very snuggly person), and the Wiggles." Er, I don’t know what you had in mind, probably more Doctor Who, less Wiggles, right? TOO LATE NOW! For some visual aids and background Wiggle information and speculation on the alternate Wiggleverse, see my other post here. Thanks to nixwilliams for the speedy beta. And remember, comments/feedback = love.
The soundtrack to the dream was the strangest whirring noise. An otherworldly mechanical sound, part breathing and alive, and something else as well. Something working at the impossible, doing something even his dreamworld couldn’t imagine. He resolved to think about it later. It was a resolution he would forget as soon as he woke up.
Jeff didn’t know how it happened. He was a children’s performer, television and stage. He liked dogs, and cups of tea, and the way segments of orange felt in your mouth, bursting with juice, sweet and tangy. He liked sleeping. He’d made more money than he’d ever thought he could make. And now he was in space.
He woke up. The pillow was red, the sheets yellow, the bedspread blue. It was a bunk bed and he was sleeping on the top, as usual. He rolled over. He blinked and looked around. The others were doing things, moving around in an energetic way, pressing buttons, working dials, pulling levers, checking read-outs. Someone was talking. It was a voice he didn’t recognise.
“But how? How did you - it’s incredible - but how?”
Everything was bright, flooded with white light, made with vivid colours: blue, red, yellow, green, there was a purple chair, an orange trim, a set of pink buttons. It was the set of a spaceship, he thought, for a segment of the show that he’d forgotten about. That must be it.
“And this really is a working thrust-collatorator? Hooked up to a-” the voice was saying, “It’s genius!”
Jeff sat up. At the end of the bunk was a small round window surrounded by a green frame. It was dark outside. Jeff crawled to the end of the bed and brought his face up close to the window. It was dark outside and there was no ground, no trees, no buildings, no street, no nothing. Not even the other side of the set, the scaffolding holding it all together, or a person holding a prop, waiting in the wings. There was nothing. A vast expanse of space, the occasional pinpoint of faraway light, but other than that, emptiness.
“And this circuit, I’ve never seen anything like this before…”
Jeff pulled away from the window. He could hear Anthony talking, explaining something in his patient, cheerful way.
“Um?” said Jeff.
“Oh, Jeff,” said Murray, spinning round and approaching him with a smile. “You’re awake.”
“Yes,” said Jeff, with uncertainty. “At least, I think I am. What’s going on?”
“We’re in space,” said Murray.
“We are?” asked Jeff.
“Yes,” said Murray and went back to an orange and red control panel.
“How did you know to…?” the unfamiliar voice was saying. Jeff looked around to try and locate who was speaking. Anthony was standing by a big screen which was surrounded with a yellow frame, pointing at a complex series of lines, curves and dots on the screen, saying something to a man next to him. The man was skinny and scruffy, wearing a long brown trench coat and Converse shoes. He had brown hair that stuck in all directions and brown eyes. His face twitched as he looked from the screen to Anthony and back again, over the top of his square black-framed glasses.
“Um,” said Jeff again, for lack of anything else to say.
Anthony noticed him and broke off from his dialogue with the stranger. “Oh, hi Jeff! You’re awake!” he said, smiling. “Jeff, this is The Doctor. The Doctor, this is Jeff. Jeff likes to sleep.”
The Doctor looked at Jeff. “Oh, yes, sleep is important. Sometimes.” The Doctor grinned and Jeff felt suddenly that this man was not quite all there. Jeff gave the slightest shake of his head and the feeling settled uncomfortably within him.
They were sitting around a (mauve) table, drinking cups of tea and eating segments of fresh orange. It was something they did nearly every day, sometimes at meetings, sometimes for a break, sometimes when they were trying to write and needed something to get their brains working. It was the most normal thing in the world for them. If only, thought Jeff, it felt normal.
The others were talking and slurping tea and munching orange. Jeff paused to pick some pith from between his teeth and he noticed that The Doctor was sitting in Sam’s seat. Sam was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Sam?” he said.
“Huh?” said Anthony.
“What?” said Murray.
“Who’s Sam?” said The Doctor.
The three Wiggles looked at each other.
“I saw him…” began Anthony. “Earlier today…”
“I thought I saw him too,” said Jeff. “When I first woke up. His yellow top…”
“Yes?” said Murray.
“It was from behind,” Jeff said.
“Oh,” said Anthony.
Murray said a word they’re not allowed to say on television or on stage. There was a pause. The Doctor opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and closed it. He took a sip of tea.
“Good tea, this,” he said conversationally.
“Sorry,” said Jeff, “But who is this guy again?”
They explored the spaceship, trundling silent and glum down lilac corridors, through magenta doors, into lime alcoves. They passed a blue box, which The Doctor patted fondly with a soft hand. When Jeff began asking about it, Murray just shook his head and Jeff fell silent. Sam was the newest member, the replacement for Greg, who was sick, back on Earth. But that didn’t make Sam any less of a Wiggle. There were things you did for each other. There was an unspoken code.
They rounded a cobalt corner and heard a noise coming from the end of an apricot hallway. They exchanged glances and ran down the corridor towards the sound. Stumbling into a fuchsia storage room, they found Sam tethered to the floor and the ceiling with turquoise ropes around his hands and feet. He had a matching turquoise gag running through his mouth. Anthony removed the gag, and Jeff and Murray worked on the ropes holding his hands and feet. Out of the corner of his eye, Jeff could see The Doctor leaning in the doorway, observing.
“What happened?” asked Anthony, “Are you alright?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” said Sam, his voice slightly hoarse. “All the better for seeing you guys!” He coughed.
“What happened?” said Anthony again.
“There was this guy,” Sam said, “He told me he was with the crew and we were running out of time and he needed my help to work on the spaceship, the set for the spaceship - I didn’t know we needed a set for a spaceship, but I thought maybe someone had just forgot to tell me. Or they’d - you’d - told me and I’d forgotten, I’ve been trying so hard to learn all the songs that sometimes I think more about that than other stuff. Anyway, he kept saying the word ‘sonic’, we gotta make it ‘sonic’ he said and he had this thing, this screwdriver thing that he was using to make the set and it was all happening so fast and some of the crew were there helping and then they weren’t there and then…”
Sam’s hands and feet were free by then and the other three Wiggles standing close around him, offering him support, the gentle pressure of fingertips on his arm and the small of his back, an arm for him to lean on should he need it. Sam rubbed the back of his head with his hand.
“Go on,” said Murray quietly.
“And then - nothing,” said Sam. “I think he must have clocked me one, the bastard. Because next thing I know I wake up here and I’ve got a throbbing headache.” He gave them a small smile and added softly, “I’m bloody glad to see you guys, did I mention?”
For a moment they did nothing, just standing, listening to the soft whir of the spaceship’s engines.
“Ok,” said Anthony eventually, “Do we know who this guy is?” He looked at Sam.
Sam furrowed his brow. “He kept calling himself The Master,” he said and then tripping over his own words, “What is that sound? It’s like an engine or something, beneath us?”
“It is an engine,” said Anthony, but The Doctor spoke over him.
“The Master?!” he cried.
“Yeah, something like that,” replied Sam, then looking back at Anthony, he asked, “An engine for what?”
“A spaceship,” said Anthony, and again The Doctor spoke over him.
“The Master?” he said, his voice agitated. “No, it can’t be. You must have got it wrong.”
Sam kept his eyes fixed on Anthony’s face. “No,” he said, “I’m pretty sure he called himself The Master,” and, in a lower voice to Anthony, he said, “What do you mean ‘a spaceship’? You don’t mean a spaceship, though, do you? And who is this guy?” He tilted his head in The Doctor’s direction.
Jeff tried to keep his face neutral. He felt Murray dig an elbow into his side in warning.
“No,” said Anthony in his patient, cheerful way. “I do actually mean a spaceship. We are in space, right at this very moment.”
“Aaah, okay…” said Sam slowly, his eyes shifting from Anthony’s face to Murray’s to Jeff’s and back to Anthony’s, a smile gradually breaking out over his face. “Right…” he said.
“And that guy over there,” continued Anthony, “is The Doctor. I don’t actually know anything more about him, but he seems to know more about flying spaceships than I do and he was rather intrigued about our one.”
“Our what?” said Sam, grinning.
“Our spaceship,” said Anthony.
“Right,” said Sam, “Our spaceship.” He gave a small chuckle.
Something suddenly occurred to Jeff. “Hold on a moment!” he said, “Anthony, how do you even know how to drive a spaceship? Or pilot one, or whatever the word is.”
“Oh,” said Anthony, “I was an astronaut before I was a Wiggle.”
“You were not!” laughed Murray.
Anthony just shrugged. Murray and Jeff exchanged glances. And then they were all laughing.
Back in the dining section of the spaceship, Sam was drinking tea and leaning by an oblong, yellow-framed window that looked out into the vast expanse of space. Jeff approached him, eating a segment of orange.
“We really are in space,” Sam said to him.
“Yeah,” said Jeff. “Apparently we are.”
Sam looked at him, examining his face. Jeff made an almost-imperceptible shake of his head, as if to say I don’t know or Don’t ask me. Whatever he was trying to say, he knew Sam understood because Sam raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, not breaking their gaze.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” said The Doctor, walking towards them, holding out his hands diplomatically. “I feel like without a skivvy I’m losing some deeper level of communication, but never mind. I just need to know, did this man really call himself The Master? Can you think about it for me? Think about it hard.”
Jeff looked out the window into the darkness of space. He wondered where Earth was in relation to them, how far they were from home. He heard Sam answer The Doctor with a level, certain voice and Jeff felt proud of him.
“Yes,” said Sam. “He called himself The Master.”
“Are you sure?” asked The Doctor again.
“Yes, I am,” Sam replied. “I’ve thought about it and I know I’m remembering it correctly.”
Jeff looked around. The Doctor was shaking his head. He felt Sam’s hand reach out and squeeze him on the arm.
“Why is it so hard to believe,” came a voice from somewhere, “that it’s me, Doctor?”
The Doctor’s head spun around. There was a man leaning in the doorway. He was wearing a black leather jacket, there was a slight smile on his lips and his blue eyes were fixed on The Doctor.
“No,” said The Doctor, disbelieving.
“Yes,” said The Master, “And I’m the newest member of their little band. I’m the Black Wiggle.”
The Master’s eyes flicked to the faces of the others. “Why so glum?” he called, his eyes locking back onto The Doctor’s. “Though,” he continued in his sing-song tone, “Maybe Leather Wiggle would be a better name. Or Dark Wiggle. Oh yes, I like that one.” He cocked one eyebrow. “Or Bondage Wiggle,” he said, shooting a glance at Sam, “Eh, Sam? Do you like that one?”
Sam looked angry but it was Murray who spoke first.
“No!” he said.
“Oh?” said The Master mildly.
“You are not a Wiggle, nor will you ever be one,” Murray said firmly.
“Oh,” said The Master, smiling, “But you fit so nicely into my plans for world domination. You have the little ones quite enthralled. And through you, we can control them, brainwash them, make them think whatever we want them to think!” He waved his hands through the air. “And they are the future. And the future, quite simply, will be mine!”
Sam looked sceptical, but again Murray spoke.
“No,” he said, firmly.
“Oh?” said the Master, “I can do you a song, if you’d like? If you want to feel like I’ve gone through the proper channels, like I’ve auditioned for your little gang.” The Master cleared his throat and started singing. “Welcome to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain…” He was smiling.
“No,” said Murray again.
“Oh, you don’t like that one?” said The Master. “Ok. I’ve prepared another,” and then, singing, “Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste…”
“No,” said Murray and Anthony at the same time.
“Oh?” said The Master, “Wha-”
“No,” said all four Wiggles at the same time.
“O-” said The Master.
“No,” said all four Wiggles and The Doctor at the same time.
There was silence. The Master opened his mouth.
“No,” they said all together.
Jeff pressed a whole orange into The Doctor’s hands. “Thank you,” he said in a low, earnest voice, “Thank you for, well, you know. Taking him off our hands.”
The Doctor nodded.
“And sorry,” said Jeff, “About being a bit, er, tetchy with you before. I just-”
“It’s OK,” said The Doctor. “Really. It’s fine.”
Jeff smiled. He reached behind him for another orange, attempting to put it into the pocket of The Doctor’s oversized trench coat. The Doctor laughed. “I’m more of a banana person myself!”
The Wiggles stood together, arms slung around each other’s shoulders, fingers looped through fingers.
“You’ve got him contained in there?” asked Murray, nodding towards the TARDIS.
“Oh yes,” said The Doctor. “I’ve got him.”
Murray nodded. “OK,” he said.
“Good bye,” said The Doctor.
“Bye!” said the Wiggles, in chorus.
The Doctor stepped inside the TARDIS and closed the door. The sound of the TARDIS dematerialising made Jeff reach for something buried in his memories.
“I’ve heard that sound before,” he said.
“Oh yes?” said Anthony.
Jeff’s brow furrowed in thought. “No,” he shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The TARDIS whirred rhythmically out of existence.
“Tea?” said Sam.
“Why not?” said Murray.