FIC: This is Where It Gets Complicated | BBT/Doctor Who/Firefly/(some Community)/DINOSAURS
Title: This is Where It Gets Complicated
Rating: PG13ish
Word Count: Around 4500
Disclaimer: BBT, Doctor Who, Firefly, & Community aren't mine, etc.
Summary: Sheldon builds a time machine by accident, Amy and Penny bond, Mal doesn’t like his ship dragged around, the TARDIS wants to keep Kaylee, and everything is always the Doctor’s fault. (Except maybe this once.) ALSO: DINOSAURS.
Also Sheldon/Penny(ish)
(Also, in this universe, there was never a Doctor Who, Firefly, or Community television show. For obvious reasons.) Community is relegated to the epilogue, which you don't need to read if you don't want closure.
Beta'd by weasleytook, who is clearly too awesome to be a real person. All mistakes are mine.
IF YOU DISLIKE HANDWAVING, DO NOT READ THIS FIC. (or read it and lol)
This is a help_Japan fic for the lovely montycrowley - however, I'm no longer sure if this resembles anything you requested. I will totally write you another fic if you want! I don't know what this is, I'm so sorry.
This is Where It Gets Complicated
First, Ten wants to give you a quick warning, because even though he’s not in this fic, he’s really quite needy:
Got that? Yes? Good.
Let’s start.
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TODAY, THIS AFTERNOON, AT HALF PAST FOUR
“Sheldon? What’s all…this?” Penny asks, leaning over the 3 to 4 foot tall tripod…thing.
“I’m trying to determine more about that device,” Sheldon says from the kitchen. His voice is a little short, which Penny figures means that he isn’t making much headway. Given that he’s clearly frustrated, she decides nice is probably the way to go today.
“It’s gotcha stumped, huh?” she asks. Nice, she scoffs as Sheldon twitches.
“I’ll have you know, I’m making progress. I haven’t been able to ascertain what substance it’s made of, though, which makes no sense. It’s almost as if it appears like it’s not…”
Sheldon trails off, uncertain, the bottle of water held limply in his hand as he eyes the tripod.
“Not what?” she asks, which seems to get him going again. He does that weird shrug-twitch thing and walks over to her.
“As if it weren’t from this planet,” he says.
There’s a low thrumming noise behind them, and a faint gust of wind, and when the two of them turn around, startled, there’s a blue box in the middle of the kitchen, right where Sheldon was standing a moment ago.
“Heaven’s sake!”” Sheldon blurts out, jumping back a step. Penny’s moved back, too, but she’s eyeing the box warily.
“Where’d that come from?” she asks him. Sheldon is doing a fantastic expression of a fish, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly.
The door of the blue box opens, and a pale skinny tall man walks out, looking behind him and talking all the while. “And the ocean, Amy, it’s-” He pauses, then, having seen them. “Huh,” he says. “Well, then.”
“What are you doing in my apartment?” Sheldon asks, sounding very near a nervous breakdown of perhaps epic proportions, so Penny puts a hand on his arm and takes another step closer to get a better look at the man.
“I actually don’t know,” he says. “I shouldn’t be in your apartment. I should be on a beach. A gorgeous beach. I-where are we?”
“You’re in my apartment!” Sheldon says, voice pitching high, eye twitching.
“Doctor, where are-oh really? Why do I ever believe you when you say we’re going anywhere?” This time it’s a girl-well, not a girl, a woman, close to Penny’s age it looks like.
“Amy,” he says, “I always get where I’m going eventually. Sometimes I just choose to take side trips.”
“Without informing me?”
“Well, this one was less of a choice.”
“Doctor-”
“You’re in my apartment,” Sheldon says, and takes another step back, this time bumping into the tripod device thing. Which, Penny notices, is glowing, now. Yep, definitely glowing. Well, this day is certainly stellar.
“Waitwaitwait-” the man (Doctor?) says, a worried look on his face, “Is that-Amy, get back in the TARDIS.”
“But-”
“Get back in the TARDIS!” he says, and then-
FLASH
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ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO
The Doctor, naturally, bounces to his feet first. Amy glares up at him from where she’s lying on the ground. The blonde girl and the boy are also slowly getting up.
Amy pulls herself to her feet, looks up, and freezes.
Getting up where?
“Doctor?” she asks, because there are very, very, very tall trees, and the sky looks kind of weird, and they’re outside, and there is very clearly no TARDIS within eyesight.
“Why does the air taste weird?” the blonde girl asks, which, yes, it does, and-
“Doctor, what is going on?” Amy asks.
The Doctor has stopped himself mid-bounce. He looks around him, and then does an extra turn, probably for good measure.
“Well,” he says.
“Where are we?” the other boy asks, and he sounds a bit, well, terrified. Poor thing.
The Doctor is busy off glaring at the trees like they have some sort of answer (and they probably do, to him), so Amy waves at the blonde girl.
“I’m Amy, by the way,” she says, “And that’s the Doctor.”
“Penny,” Penny says, and then nods her head at the boy, “And that’s Sheldon.”
“Dr. Sheldon Cooper,” Sheldon says stiffly.
“Oh good,” Amy says, amiable enough despite the circumstances, “Because two of them, that’s going to be fun.”
“What’s going on?” Penny asks, and Amy will give her this, she’s remarkably cool in the face of, well…what this is.
“Doctor?” Amy prompts. And then pauses. Because the Doctor is pulling at his hair and adjusting his bow tie in what is clearly a Not Good way.
“We’ve gone back in time,” he says. “A long way back. A very long way back.”
“But Doctor, where’s the TARDIS?” Amy asks, eyeing him in a direct fashion. The Doctor squirms a little under her gaze.
“It’s not here.”
“Hang on, people don’t just go back in time, that’s not possible!” Penny says. Sheldon shoots her a look.
“Penny,” he says, his voice dry, and look at him go, he seems to have recovered well enough, even if he’s still shooting suspicious glares at the surrounding plants and trees and things, “It’s not impossible, it’s just very improbable. Also, it hasn’t been figured out yet.”
“I know it hasn’t been figured out yet!” the Doctor yelps, “What did you do?”
“What did I do?” Sheldon snaps, glaring.
The Doctor rolls his eyes and shoves past him. Where the slightly smoking remains of that tripod thing from the flat is sitting. At least it’s not glowing. Right now.
“This,” he says. “This is a terrible, horrible, shoddy death trap of a time machine. How did you make it?”
“Not on purpose!” Sheldon says, his voice raising a little, and Penny’s looking at him in surprise.
“Well, we’re back where there’s-there’s dinosaurs and things!” the Doctor says. “Without my TARDIS! And now you probably expect me to get you back somehow, and you’ve built this horrible excuse for a time machine-”
“I didn’t make a time machine,” Sheldon says, “I found it!”
“But this doesn’t make sense, there’s no recorded human-created time travel for at least another-” the Doctor darts an overly suspicious glance at Sheldon, “Well, not for a very long time.”
“Not recorded?” Amy repeats.
“What does that mean?” Penny asks, her voice a little sharper than the Doctor was expecting, and he drops back a step from her before spinning around to look at the towering trees above.
“It means we’re either all about to be killed in some terrible way, which is why this scientific discovery goes unnoticed, or… I made sure it wasn’t recorded.”
He pauses, and Penny rolls her eyes at Amy at his obvious need for dramatic effect. Amy nods and then settles back on her heels, her voice amused.
“So what you’re saying,” she says, “Is that either way…this is completely your fault.”
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ONE HOUR LATER, STILL ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO
“It’s not my fault,” the Doctor hisses for the umpteenth time from underneath the machine. Sheldon says something low underneath his breath from next to him as they both fuss and fiddle over it, and then they’re off bickering again.
“So he’s not a man?” Penny asks.
“He’s not a man,” Amy says.
“He looks like a man,” Penny says, frowning.
Amy shakes her head. “Watch,” she says. “Doctor!” she sing-songs.
The Doctor pulls out from underneath the tripod and looks at her. “Dinosaurs?” he asks, looking quite alert.
“Nope,” Amy says. “Do you fancy a snog?”
“Go-go snog Penny, or something, I’m trying to get us back to the present-well, their present, slightly your future-” his voice gets muffled as he ducks back underneath the machine.
Penny shakes her head. “I told you he was a man,” she says to Amy.
“He’s not a man, he’s a Time Lord male…least he seems male. Doctor!” she yells, kicking his leg until he ducks his head back out. “You’re the male of your…your alien folk, yeah?”
“My alien folk, Amy Pond?”
“I bet he doesn’t ask for directions, either,” Penny says.
“We did end up accidentally in the middle of your flat,” Amy smirks.
“Male or not, it’s entirely irrational not to ask for directions if you are unsure of your location-especially, I would assume, when your traveling brings you through a temporal as well as physical plane,” Sheldon says, his tone indicating that his statement is clearly meant to be biting as he glances up from where he’s leaned underneath, watching the Doctor fiddle.
There’s a small spark and Sheldon lets out a yelp.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” the Doctor says lightly.
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ANOTHER HOUR LATER, STILL ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO, HALF PAST GOING INSANE, QUARTER TIL VERY HUNGRY
Penny starts nudging Amy repeatedly. “Look,” she hisses, pointing to their left.
A small, birdlike creature glides down towards a clearing on their left. It’s after something by the way it keeps hopping on the ground once it lands, it’s snout (not beak) snapping at something on the ground.
Penny kicks Sheldon in the leg. “Sheldon get up here, there’s some sort of bird thing, get up here!”
Sheldon practically bolts to his feet. The Doctor is just as fast.
“Ooooh, we should be able to tell when we are if we can only identify the species…” the Doctor says, tilting his head to the side to get a better look.
Sheldon shoots him a dismissive look. “It’s an Archaeopteryx,” he says. “The missing link between birds and dinosaurs? Late Jurassic Era? You’re not very accomplished at this Lord of Time business, are you?”
“It’s Time Lord,” the Doctor says, a little snappy. “And I know hundreds of thousands of different species, quite a few of them sentient, so let’s not play this game, all right?”
“They’re an important evolutionary link,” Sheldon says snidely.
“Some dinosaurs were aliens,” the Doctor says, mostly to spite him.
“Really?” Penny asks, curious.
“Oh, I don’t know, probably,” the Doctor huffs. “Can we maybe finish this before we all die horribly?”
“You don’t like dinosaurs, do you?” Amy asks, smirking.
“Big lizard things that eat everything in sight? I was heartbroken when they were swept off the map,” the Doctor says. Amy just laughs.
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STILL WITH THE DINOS, SITUATION UNCHANGED
“Think we can eat these berries?” Penny asks Amy. Amy leans back against the tree, tapping her fingers on her thighs.
“You’d think things would be more exciting than this, considering where we are,” Amy says.
Which, naturally, is when there is a very loud roar from somewhere close by. All of them freeze.
“Right,” the Doctor says with a stage whisper. “I’m not going be able to repair this, what with the smoking mess of it, but I think I can use it to pull the TARDIS back here.”
“How are you planning to do that?” Sheldon asks, looking over at him intently.
“I’m going to do it, and maybe later I can explain it to you, but this way we maybe don’t all get eaten?” the Doctor says, clearly a little amused at the put-off expression on Sheldon’s face.
“How about the both of you shut up and hurry up,” Penny hisses. She and Amy are half-curled together against the tree from where they’d been laying half on top of each other earlier, but now they’ve snapped to attention what with the reminder of dinosaurs about.
“I will kill you if I get eaten by a dinosaur, Doctor,” Amy says.
“You won’t get-”
There’s another roar. The Doctor starts working a bit more fervently.
After a few long minutes he jumps up with a satisfied crow and rushes all of them into the tall, dense grass to the side, pulling them down until they’re well-hidden, seconds before the footsteps are on them.
“Ceratosaurus,” Sheldon says once he sees it, and he’s saying ridiculous facts like knowing that they’re carnivores isn’t immediately obvious to their situation.
It comes crashing through the foliage, and they’re lying in the grass, and Sheldon’s still panicked-talking, so Penny does the first thing that comes to her mind, the only thing that comes to mind that will maybe actually shock him into silence. She leans forward and presses her lips against his.
His lips keep moving for half a second after she’s kissing him, like he can’t quite believe what’s going on, and then he stills. Completely. And she thinks, good, he’s being quiet, he gets the message, but when she tries to pull back his hands are suddenly on her waist and he’s kissing back-awkward and unsure, yeah, but there’s definite effort going on there.
There’s a loud crash of metal from somewhere very close by, and then a very angry roar, but it takes Amy poking Penny in the ribs to shake them apart.
As soon as they’ve separated they break eye contact completely. Because that didn’t just happen. Clearly.
Amy’s smirking knowingly at Penny, but the Doctor is looking at the wreckage of what was once a time machine.
“He ate it,” he says, and the sheer surprise in his voice is enough to shake them all out of their shock.
“You said you set it off,” Amy says, and he nods.
“I did,” he says. “The TARDIS should be here any minute.”
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MANY LONG MINUTES LATER
They’re trying to stay near where they set off the beacon (the Doctor has sworn up and down that it worked), but the way the Ceratosaurus almost had them for dinner has them all more than a little skittish.
They’re looking for some sort of running water, after the Doctor promised he could make it safe to drink with his sonic, when Sheldon lets out a sound that sounds surprisingly like happiness.
They pull up to a stop when they see what he sees, because out of the forest and tall trees there’s a herd of dinosaurs.
“Brachiosaurus,” Sheldon says, his tone almost reverent.
There’s something achingly graceful about the way they move across the sand, their long necks arced up in a gentle swoop towards the wrong-color sky.
“They’re beautiful,” Penny says, because they are, and he slants a thoughtful look her way.
Before she can give it too much thought, though, there’s yet another roar from behind them, and no, no this has not been the best of days for any of them.
Undoubtedly the dinosaurs had originally been on their way to pick off a Brachiosaurus, but now here they are, much smaller and much more helpless.
“Those are Allosaurus,” Sheldon says, and now he sounds extremely panicked. There’s about four of them, advancing two on each side, and the Doctor has Amy behind him like that can do any possible good as he starts edging backward.
“No, no this is all right, we should be able to outthink them somehow, it’s not as if they’re actually sentient creatures, just very large, with very sharp teeth-”
“Doctor!” Amy says, and Penny’s grabbed Sheldon’s arm to drag him back, and he’s caught her hand in his, which wasn’t at all expected, but he’s holding her just as she’s holding him.
“Penny,” he says, and there’s something there in his voice, maybe, underneath the panic-
And then the Allosaurus roar-
And then there’s gunfire, lots and lots of gunfire, and people are dragging them into a small hovering craft-
“Ai ya! Hurry up!” a man yells as another levels something like a small rocket launcher at one of the dinosaurs and a woman sights down the barrel of her gun.
“Won’t that change history?” Penny yells over the noise of the roaring and now charging Allosaurus and the gunfire.
“Are you forgetting they all go extinct?” the Doctor shouts back.
“Get us out of here!” the first man yells.
“Shun SHENG duh gao-WAHN,” the man with the gun hisses, and the Doctor jerks back a little in surprise.
The Mule (as they later find out it’s called) pulls away.
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“So you and your gorram friends yanked us back in time?” Mal asks, making sure he’s got the situation straight before he starts murdering people.
“I have absolutely no idea why you came. We were trying to get my TARDIS back here,” the Doctor says.
“And where in the 'verse are we?” Mal snarls.
“We’re on Earth. In the past. With dinosaurs. I’m not sure of the whole story myself,” the Doctor says, glancing around himself for back-up. Predictably, Amy, Sheldon, and Penny are off cavorting with the rest of the crew.
“Ai ya, this can’t be happening,” Mal says, dragging a hand across his forehead.
“Dung ee-miao,” the Doctor says, “Hold on a second. If you got pulled back here, you must have the capacity to time travel.”
“Look, Doc, I ain’t ever heard of anyone traveling through time,” Mal says.
“I was trying to bring the TARDIS to us…” the Doctor muses, running a hand through his hair and mussing it up even moreso than normal. “I wonder…if it’s trying to bring us back to it?”
Sheldon turns away from the others with a frown. “This ship must possess some quality that allowed it to be pulled back into time…”
“And maybe it’s trying to pull us back, too,” the Doctor says, nodding. He pulls out his sonic, frowning as he looks for anything out of place. “There is a signal on board…” he says. “If I can find it, and boost it…”
In any normal situation, Jayne would be growling like a bear, but Amy and Penny seem to have double-teamed him into something resembling a pleasant attitude. Zoe, Inara, Penny, Kaylee, River and Amy all seem to be bonding in an alarming fashion.
“Wash?” he asks, because only he and Simon are nearby, and he’s not about to ask the doc.
“I like dinosaurs, Mal. Do I want to be stuck back in time with them? No. No I do not.”
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STILL IN THE PAST, YADA YADA YADA, A HANDFUL OF HOURS LATER
“Wash, if you can give a little more power-”
“I don’t know if-”
“I hardly think that that’s an acceptable-”
FLASH
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TODAY, THIS AFTERNOON, AT HALF PAST FOUR AND TEN SECONDS
Penny blinks, the solid ground of the apartment floor feeling weird to her at first. She spins, quickly, and there to her left is Sheldon, as if they’d never left. Amy and the Doctor are still standing over by their TARDIS.
“Where’s everyone on the Serenity?” Amy asks, still looking around in confusion.
“They must have gone back to their own time,” the Doctor says. “I think the TARDIS snagged us on the way.”
“You realize that all sounds highly improbable,” Sheldon says.
“We did just accidentally time travel back to Dinosaurland,” Penny says. “I think I’m going to let this one slide.”
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The Doctor and Amy leave after Penny secures a promise from Amy to come back and go shopping with her and generally hang out one of these weekends. Sheldon mutters something that sounds like it contains the words “respect” and “you” to the Doctor, but clearly that can’t be the case.
They wave goodbye and then the TARDIS disappears as they go off in search of food. (They’re all really quite hungry by now.)
Just then Raj, Howard, and Leonard come in the front door with grocery bags. Leonard walks right in, right through the area the TARDIS was mere moments before, and starts setting them down on the counter.
Raj and Howard are still standing in the doorway, frowning.
Raj leans over and whispers something in Howard’s ear. Howard clears his throat uncomfortably.
“Sheldon,” he says, “Why do you have lipstick on your collar?”
Penny blushes to her roots.
Sheldon says it was a matter of survival, but doesn’t stop glancing over at her all night.
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SIX WEEKS AGO, BEFORE THE FIRST MOVIE MATINEE OF THE DAY STARTS
“Look,” the Doctor says, “I’m just curious! How did they get that device in the first place? It doesn’t make sense.”
“So we’re going back in time to spy on them? Really, Doctor?” Amy sighs.
“We’re not going to change anything, I’m just curious. Where did he find it?”
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SIX WEEKS AGO, SEVERAL HOURS AFTER THE FIRST MOVIE MATINEE OF THE DAY IS OVER
“All right,” he says. “I give up, I'm bored, let’s just go.”
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THE VORTEX, HALF PAST THE DOCTOR IS STARTING TO GET PISSED OFF AT THIS
“Doctor-”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with the TARDIS! Oh, yes, fantastic, where are you taking us, you stubborn-”
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AROUND FIVE HUNDRED YEARS IN THE FUTURE. NOON. LUNCHTIME.
“We’re not on that beach, are we,” Amy says. Says, not asks, because she knows they aren’t.
“We’re-it looks like we’re around 2510? On some sort of spaceship?”
The Doctor opens the door, and Mal is standing there, looking vaguely put out. “Hello, Doctor,” he says.
“Mal, look-”
“Captain.”
“It’s Doctor, actually, Mal,” the Doctor says, patting Mal on the cheek with a smirk. Mal looks to be suppressing a lot of rage, so Amy thinks it’s probably in everyone’s best interests to start flirting with him. Plus, those pants.
“Doctor!” Kaylee exclaims, coming around the corner. “You’re back!”
“How long were we gone?” Amy asks.
“About…three weeks?”
“Three weeks,” Mal says, trying for even. “What’re you doin’ back here, doc?”
“…tor,” the Doctor says. “Doctor. And my TARDIS is acting up, and evidently wanted to stop here for repairs.”
“Oh, she’s real shiny, ain’t she?” Kaylee says, sliding a hand down the blue wood paneling. “Can I take a look inside?”
“I-ah, sure,” the Doctor says, wincing a little as Mal starts full-out scowling.
As soon as Kaylee steps inside she lets out a delighted laugh and spins in place.
“Oh, she’s just perfect! You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you girl,” she says, her fingers already running along the console, and even Amy can tell that the TARDIS’ hum has started to sound decidedly…cheerful. “I’ll just take a quick look underneath,” Kaylee calls back.
“What!?” the Doctor says, immediately starting to dart up there, and then he pauses, wincing a little like he’s being chastened.
“Doctor?” Amy prompts.
“Nothing, nothing, she just…she’d like Kaylee to take a look.”
One very awkward wait later, Kaylee finishes up and joins them where the Doctor’s sitting with his back to the wall, faintly sulking.
“Well now,” Kaylee croons, a hand against the TARDIS’ side, “She’s got a piece missing right out her insides, poor girl, that’s your problem.”
“She’s-what?” The Doctor half-trips up the stairs and then practically dives underneath the console. Kaylee follows and points it out to him, and they engage in a quiet murmured conversation while Amy make eyes at Mal and Mal leans in the doorway to make sure they don’t take off with Kaylee, no matter how many times Inara or Book try to talk him away.
“You know,” Kaylee says, “That part you’re missing…”
“Yesss?” the Doctor asks, unable to quite hide the hiss in his voice, because the TARDIS is practically cooing over Kaylee, and really, really now.
“It looks kinda like something I picked up a few months back - there was a piece of metal just like this encased in amber.”
The Doctor stops then and turns to face her full-on, eyes expressively wide.
“Oh, this is like Jurassic Park, isn’t it!” Amy says, smirking, and the Doctor waves a hand at her as if it would in any world ever shut her up. She sticks her tongue out at him. Right.
“Amber?” he asks, just to make sure, because-well, because, really.
“Amber,” she says.
When she shows it to him he sits down heavily.
“This is why Sheldon’s time machine pulled you here instead of the TARDIS,” he says. “This is the piece that was in the TARDIS. It wasn’t some random piece of lost time travel technology, it was from the TARDIS!”
“But how did it get here?” Amy asks, frowning as she looks at the amber. The Doctor shakes his head.
“It was in the machine, and then that Ceratosaurus ate most of the machine. At some point after, the device must have become encased in amber, and then all this time later it ended up in some souvenir shop, and Kaylee bought it. When I used the machine to try to pull the TARDIS back, it focused on the device here, instead.”
“But how did Sheldon and Penny get the device if it was in the TARDIS to start with?” Amy asks, frowning.
“I have absolutely no idea,” he says. “Maybe it hasn’t even happened yet-that’s the problem with time travel,” he says, “You never know what’s happening when.”
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Kaylee sings while she works. Amy’s considering the likelihood of Kaylee coming for a quick adventure, given that the girl’s a cheerful delight with unexpected loads of dirty stories that make Amy laugh.
The Doctor, on the other hand, is glowering. It seems the TARDIS was insistent that Kaylee help her.
“She doesn’t have special powers,” the Doctor says. “She doesn’t.”
“Of course she doesn’t,” Amy agrees, easy and a little amused. The Doctor glares at her, and then at the TARDIS for good measure.
“Traitor,” he says underneath his breath. He’s not sure which he means. (It’s probably both.)
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Kaylee gives them both a huge hug goodbye, and makes him promise to bring the TARDIS around for a visit sooner or later. The Doctor (grudgingly) agrees.
(Mal had softened a small degree when Amy had hugged him goodbye, just like Inara had told her he would.)
As they disappear away, though, the Doctor’s still rubbing a hand through his hair.
“It just-it doesn’t make any sense,” he says. “How did they get the device in the first place?”
“You’ve got that crumpled up frowney face,” Amy says, tilting her head a little to the side as she eyes him.
“But it doesn’t make sense!”
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EPILOGUE
SIX WEEKS AGO, DURING THE FIRST MOVIE MATINEE OF THE DAY
(THAT WAS AN EXPLANATION, NOT A PLAY-BY-PLAY)
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“This is so dull. Dull. You’re dull, Doctor!” Amy sing-songs, head pillowed against her arm.
“I’m not dull!” he says turning to her, outraged, and she accidentally snorts as she laughs at him, and then slaps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.
“Did you just-wait,” he says, pausing for a moment, hand frozen in midair, “What was that? Did the door just open?”
“What?”
“No, of course it didn’t, it couldn’t, the TARDIS door doesn’t just open by itself. Anyway. Where were we?”
“We were leaving, Doctor!”
“Just a little longer,” he says.
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Penny and Britta see each other at about the same time, and they speed up until they can grab each other in a hug, bright smiles all around.
“Hey, how are you, how long has it been now?” Penny asks, pulling back to get a good look at her cousin.
“Too long,” Britta says, and for the first time since arriving in California she finally seems relaxed.
“So you didn’t tell me why you’re out here?”
“It’s a…thing. With my friends. In my study group? A thing.”
“A thing,” Penny nods, trying for a serious expression, but the both of them start grinning at about the same time.
“Abed wanted to go to Comic-Con, and so Troy was going to go, and Jeff didn’t want to go but then Annie said it could be a baby shower group activity type of thing and then Pierce said he’d pay for all of us, and…”
“So a thing.”
“A thing,” Britta agrees.
Right then, a small monkey scampers up between them before climbing up Britta and settling in her arms, small hands clutching an odd silvery-green device.
“Whoa-monkey!” Penny yelps, taking a quick step back, and Britta laughs.
“It’s okay, he’s Troy’s…pet. Except he keeps running off.”
“What’s he holding?” Penny asks, leaning forward curiously, smiling a little as the monkey watches her with wide eyes.
“I don’t know…he steals things. A lot. It’s a problem.”
“It looks all…science-y. And kind of important? Do you mind if I give it to the boys? They might get a kick out of it.”
“Look at you, with your boys,” Britta laughs.
“Oh shut it,” Penny declares, bumping into Britta purposefully, and they walk off, clearly enjoying themselves.
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FIVE WEEKS AND SIX DAYS AGO, AT A MILK-STEALING TIME OF THE MORNING
“Oh, hey, Sheldon, I almost forgot-look at this weird doohickey! Do you know what it does?”
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THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE STORY IN ONE CLIP
OR MAYBE I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS CLIP
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Finis
.
Rating: PG13ish
Word Count: Around 4500
Disclaimer: BBT, Doctor Who, Firefly, & Community aren't mine, etc.
Summary: Sheldon builds a time machine by accident, Amy and Penny bond, Mal doesn’t like his ship dragged around, the TARDIS wants to keep Kaylee, and everything is always the Doctor’s fault. (Except maybe this once.) ALSO: DINOSAURS.
Also Sheldon/Penny(ish)
(Also, in this universe, there was never a Doctor Who, Firefly, or Community television show. For obvious reasons.) Community is relegated to the epilogue, which you don't need to read if you don't want closure.
Beta'd by weasleytook, who is clearly too awesome to be a real person. All mistakes are mine.
IF YOU DISLIKE HANDWAVING, DO NOT READ THIS FIC. (or read it and lol)
This is a help_Japan fic for the lovely montycrowley - however, I'm no longer sure if this resembles anything you requested. I will totally write you another fic if you want! I don't know what this is, I'm so sorry.
This is Where It Gets Complicated
First, Ten wants to give you a quick warning, because even though he’s not in this fic, he’s really quite needy:
Click to viewGot that? Yes? Good.
Let’s start.
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TODAY, THIS AFTERNOON, AT HALF PAST FOUR
“Sheldon? What’s all…this?” Penny asks, leaning over the 3 to 4 foot tall tripod…thing.
“I’m trying to determine more about that device,” Sheldon says from the kitchen. His voice is a little short, which Penny figures means that he isn’t making much headway. Given that he’s clearly frustrated, she decides nice is probably the way to go today.
“It’s gotcha stumped, huh?” she asks. Nice, she scoffs as Sheldon twitches.
“I’ll have you know, I’m making progress. I haven’t been able to ascertain what substance it’s made of, though, which makes no sense. It’s almost as if it appears like it’s not…”
Sheldon trails off, uncertain, the bottle of water held limply in his hand as he eyes the tripod.
“Not what?” she asks, which seems to get him going again. He does that weird shrug-twitch thing and walks over to her.
“As if it weren’t from this planet,” he says.
There’s a low thrumming noise behind them, and a faint gust of wind, and when the two of them turn around, startled, there’s a blue box in the middle of the kitchen, right where Sheldon was standing a moment ago.
“Heaven’s sake!”” Sheldon blurts out, jumping back a step. Penny’s moved back, too, but she’s eyeing the box warily.
“Where’d that come from?” she asks him. Sheldon is doing a fantastic expression of a fish, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly.
The door of the blue box opens, and a pale skinny tall man walks out, looking behind him and talking all the while. “And the ocean, Amy, it’s-” He pauses, then, having seen them. “Huh,” he says. “Well, then.”
“What are you doing in my apartment?” Sheldon asks, sounding very near a nervous breakdown of perhaps epic proportions, so Penny puts a hand on his arm and takes another step closer to get a better look at the man.
“I actually don’t know,” he says. “I shouldn’t be in your apartment. I should be on a beach. A gorgeous beach. I-where are we?”
“You’re in my apartment!” Sheldon says, voice pitching high, eye twitching.
“Doctor, where are-oh really? Why do I ever believe you when you say we’re going anywhere?” This time it’s a girl-well, not a girl, a woman, close to Penny’s age it looks like.
“Amy,” he says, “I always get where I’m going eventually. Sometimes I just choose to take side trips.”
“Without informing me?”
“Well, this one was less of a choice.”
“Doctor-”
“You’re in my apartment,” Sheldon says, and takes another step back, this time bumping into the tripod device thing. Which, Penny notices, is glowing, now. Yep, definitely glowing. Well, this day is certainly stellar.
“Waitwaitwait-” the man (Doctor?) says, a worried look on his face, “Is that-Amy, get back in the TARDIS.”
“But-”
“Get back in the TARDIS!” he says, and then-
FLASH
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ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO
The Doctor, naturally, bounces to his feet first. Amy glares up at him from where she’s lying on the ground. The blonde girl and the boy are also slowly getting up.
Amy pulls herself to her feet, looks up, and freezes.
Getting up where?
“Doctor?” she asks, because there are very, very, very tall trees, and the sky looks kind of weird, and they’re outside, and there is very clearly no TARDIS within eyesight.
“Why does the air taste weird?” the blonde girl asks, which, yes, it does, and-
“Doctor, what is going on?” Amy asks.
The Doctor has stopped himself mid-bounce. He looks around him, and then does an extra turn, probably for good measure.
“Well,” he says.
“Where are we?” the other boy asks, and he sounds a bit, well, terrified. Poor thing.
The Doctor is busy off glaring at the trees like they have some sort of answer (and they probably do, to him), so Amy waves at the blonde girl.
“I’m Amy, by the way,” she says, “And that’s the Doctor.”
“Penny,” Penny says, and then nods her head at the boy, “And that’s Sheldon.”
“Dr. Sheldon Cooper,” Sheldon says stiffly.
“Oh good,” Amy says, amiable enough despite the circumstances, “Because two of them, that’s going to be fun.”
“What’s going on?” Penny asks, and Amy will give her this, she’s remarkably cool in the face of, well…what this is.
“Doctor?” Amy prompts. And then pauses. Because the Doctor is pulling at his hair and adjusting his bow tie in what is clearly a Not Good way.
“We’ve gone back in time,” he says. “A long way back. A very long way back.”
“But Doctor, where’s the TARDIS?” Amy asks, eyeing him in a direct fashion. The Doctor squirms a little under her gaze.
“It’s not here.”
“Hang on, people don’t just go back in time, that’s not possible!” Penny says. Sheldon shoots her a look.
“Penny,” he says, his voice dry, and look at him go, he seems to have recovered well enough, even if he’s still shooting suspicious glares at the surrounding plants and trees and things, “It’s not impossible, it’s just very improbable. Also, it hasn’t been figured out yet.”
“I know it hasn’t been figured out yet!” the Doctor yelps, “What did you do?”
“What did I do?” Sheldon snaps, glaring.
The Doctor rolls his eyes and shoves past him. Where the slightly smoking remains of that tripod thing from the flat is sitting. At least it’s not glowing. Right now.
“This,” he says. “This is a terrible, horrible, shoddy death trap of a time machine. How did you make it?”
“Not on purpose!” Sheldon says, his voice raising a little, and Penny’s looking at him in surprise.
“Well, we’re back where there’s-there’s dinosaurs and things!” the Doctor says. “Without my TARDIS! And now you probably expect me to get you back somehow, and you’ve built this horrible excuse for a time machine-”
“I didn’t make a time machine,” Sheldon says, “I found it!”
“But this doesn’t make sense, there’s no recorded human-created time travel for at least another-” the Doctor darts an overly suspicious glance at Sheldon, “Well, not for a very long time.”
“Not recorded?” Amy repeats.
“What does that mean?” Penny asks, her voice a little sharper than the Doctor was expecting, and he drops back a step from her before spinning around to look at the towering trees above.
“It means we’re either all about to be killed in some terrible way, which is why this scientific discovery goes unnoticed, or… I made sure it wasn’t recorded.”
He pauses, and Penny rolls her eyes at Amy at his obvious need for dramatic effect. Amy nods and then settles back on her heels, her voice amused.
“So what you’re saying,” she says, “Is that either way…this is completely your fault.”
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ONE HOUR LATER, STILL ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO
“It’s not my fault,” the Doctor hisses for the umpteenth time from underneath the machine. Sheldon says something low underneath his breath from next to him as they both fuss and fiddle over it, and then they’re off bickering again.
“So he’s not a man?” Penny asks.
“He’s not a man,” Amy says.
“He looks like a man,” Penny says, frowning.
Amy shakes her head. “Watch,” she says. “Doctor!” she sing-songs.
The Doctor pulls out from underneath the tripod and looks at her. “Dinosaurs?” he asks, looking quite alert.
“Nope,” Amy says. “Do you fancy a snog?”
“Go-go snog Penny, or something, I’m trying to get us back to the present-well, their present, slightly your future-” his voice gets muffled as he ducks back underneath the machine.
Penny shakes her head. “I told you he was a man,” she says to Amy.
“He’s not a man, he’s a Time Lord male…least he seems male. Doctor!” she yells, kicking his leg until he ducks his head back out. “You’re the male of your…your alien folk, yeah?”
“My alien folk, Amy Pond?”
“I bet he doesn’t ask for directions, either,” Penny says.
“We did end up accidentally in the middle of your flat,” Amy smirks.
“Male or not, it’s entirely irrational not to ask for directions if you are unsure of your location-especially, I would assume, when your traveling brings you through a temporal as well as physical plane,” Sheldon says, his tone indicating that his statement is clearly meant to be biting as he glances up from where he’s leaned underneath, watching the Doctor fiddle.
There’s a small spark and Sheldon lets out a yelp.
“Sorry ‘bout that,” the Doctor says lightly.
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ANOTHER HOUR LATER, STILL ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION YEARS AGO, HALF PAST GOING INSANE, QUARTER TIL VERY HUNGRY
Penny starts nudging Amy repeatedly. “Look,” she hisses, pointing to their left.
A small, birdlike creature glides down towards a clearing on their left. It’s after something by the way it keeps hopping on the ground once it lands, it’s snout (not beak) snapping at something on the ground.
Penny kicks Sheldon in the leg. “Sheldon get up here, there’s some sort of bird thing, get up here!”
Sheldon practically bolts to his feet. The Doctor is just as fast.
“Ooooh, we should be able to tell when we are if we can only identify the species…” the Doctor says, tilting his head to the side to get a better look.
Sheldon shoots him a dismissive look. “It’s an Archaeopteryx,” he says. “The missing link between birds and dinosaurs? Late Jurassic Era? You’re not very accomplished at this Lord of Time business, are you?”
“It’s Time Lord,” the Doctor says, a little snappy. “And I know hundreds of thousands of different species, quite a few of them sentient, so let’s not play this game, all right?”
“They’re an important evolutionary link,” Sheldon says snidely.
“Some dinosaurs were aliens,” the Doctor says, mostly to spite him.
“Really?” Penny asks, curious.
“Oh, I don’t know, probably,” the Doctor huffs. “Can we maybe finish this before we all die horribly?”
“You don’t like dinosaurs, do you?” Amy asks, smirking.
“Big lizard things that eat everything in sight? I was heartbroken when they were swept off the map,” the Doctor says. Amy just laughs.
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STILL WITH THE DINOS, SITUATION UNCHANGED
“Think we can eat these berries?” Penny asks Amy. Amy leans back against the tree, tapping her fingers on her thighs.
“You’d think things would be more exciting than this, considering where we are,” Amy says.
Which, naturally, is when there is a very loud roar from somewhere close by. All of them freeze.
“Right,” the Doctor says with a stage whisper. “I’m not going be able to repair this, what with the smoking mess of it, but I think I can use it to pull the TARDIS back here.”
“How are you planning to do that?” Sheldon asks, looking over at him intently.
“I’m going to do it, and maybe later I can explain it to you, but this way we maybe don’t all get eaten?” the Doctor says, clearly a little amused at the put-off expression on Sheldon’s face.
“How about the both of you shut up and hurry up,” Penny hisses. She and Amy are half-curled together against the tree from where they’d been laying half on top of each other earlier, but now they’ve snapped to attention what with the reminder of dinosaurs about.
“I will kill you if I get eaten by a dinosaur, Doctor,” Amy says.
“You won’t get-”
There’s another roar. The Doctor starts working a bit more fervently.
After a few long minutes he jumps up with a satisfied crow and rushes all of them into the tall, dense grass to the side, pulling them down until they’re well-hidden, seconds before the footsteps are on them.
“Ceratosaurus,” Sheldon says once he sees it, and he’s saying ridiculous facts like knowing that they’re carnivores isn’t immediately obvious to their situation.
It comes crashing through the foliage, and they’re lying in the grass, and Sheldon’s still panicked-talking, so Penny does the first thing that comes to her mind, the only thing that comes to mind that will maybe actually shock him into silence. She leans forward and presses her lips against his.
His lips keep moving for half a second after she’s kissing him, like he can’t quite believe what’s going on, and then he stills. Completely. And she thinks, good, he’s being quiet, he gets the message, but when she tries to pull back his hands are suddenly on her waist and he’s kissing back-awkward and unsure, yeah, but there’s definite effort going on there.
There’s a loud crash of metal from somewhere very close by, and then a very angry roar, but it takes Amy poking Penny in the ribs to shake them apart.
As soon as they’ve separated they break eye contact completely. Because that didn’t just happen. Clearly.
Amy’s smirking knowingly at Penny, but the Doctor is looking at the wreckage of what was once a time machine.
“He ate it,” he says, and the sheer surprise in his voice is enough to shake them all out of their shock.
“You said you set it off,” Amy says, and he nods.
“I did,” he says. “The TARDIS should be here any minute.”
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MANY LONG MINUTES LATER
They’re trying to stay near where they set off the beacon (the Doctor has sworn up and down that it worked), but the way the Ceratosaurus almost had them for dinner has them all more than a little skittish.
They’re looking for some sort of running water, after the Doctor promised he could make it safe to drink with his sonic, when Sheldon lets out a sound that sounds surprisingly like happiness.
They pull up to a stop when they see what he sees, because out of the forest and tall trees there’s a herd of dinosaurs.
“Brachiosaurus,” Sheldon says, his tone almost reverent.
There’s something achingly graceful about the way they move across the sand, their long necks arced up in a gentle swoop towards the wrong-color sky.
“They’re beautiful,” Penny says, because they are, and he slants a thoughtful look her way.
Before she can give it too much thought, though, there’s yet another roar from behind them, and no, no this has not been the best of days for any of them.
Undoubtedly the dinosaurs had originally been on their way to pick off a Brachiosaurus, but now here they are, much smaller and much more helpless.
“Those are Allosaurus,” Sheldon says, and now he sounds extremely panicked. There’s about four of them, advancing two on each side, and the Doctor has Amy behind him like that can do any possible good as he starts edging backward.
“No, no this is all right, we should be able to outthink them somehow, it’s not as if they’re actually sentient creatures, just very large, with very sharp teeth-”
“Doctor!” Amy says, and Penny’s grabbed Sheldon’s arm to drag him back, and he’s caught her hand in his, which wasn’t at all expected, but he’s holding her just as she’s holding him.
“Penny,” he says, and there’s something there in his voice, maybe, underneath the panic-
And then the Allosaurus roar-
And then there’s gunfire, lots and lots of gunfire, and people are dragging them into a small hovering craft-
“Ai ya! Hurry up!” a man yells as another levels something like a small rocket launcher at one of the dinosaurs and a woman sights down the barrel of her gun.
“Won’t that change history?” Penny yells over the noise of the roaring and now charging Allosaurus and the gunfire.
“Are you forgetting they all go extinct?” the Doctor shouts back.
“Get us out of here!” the first man yells.
“Shun SHENG duh gao-WAHN,” the man with the gun hisses, and the Doctor jerks back a little in surprise.
The Mule (as they later find out it’s called) pulls away.
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“So you and your gorram friends yanked us back in time?” Mal asks, making sure he’s got the situation straight before he starts murdering people.
“I have absolutely no idea why you came. We were trying to get my TARDIS back here,” the Doctor says.
“And where in the 'verse are we?” Mal snarls.
“We’re on Earth. In the past. With dinosaurs. I’m not sure of the whole story myself,” the Doctor says, glancing around himself for back-up. Predictably, Amy, Sheldon, and Penny are off cavorting with the rest of the crew.
“Ai ya, this can’t be happening,” Mal says, dragging a hand across his forehead.
“Dung ee-miao,” the Doctor says, “Hold on a second. If you got pulled back here, you must have the capacity to time travel.”
“Look, Doc, I ain’t ever heard of anyone traveling through time,” Mal says.
“I was trying to bring the TARDIS to us…” the Doctor muses, running a hand through his hair and mussing it up even moreso than normal. “I wonder…if it’s trying to bring us back to it?”
Sheldon turns away from the others with a frown. “This ship must possess some quality that allowed it to be pulled back into time…”
“And maybe it’s trying to pull us back, too,” the Doctor says, nodding. He pulls out his sonic, frowning as he looks for anything out of place. “There is a signal on board…” he says. “If I can find it, and boost it…”
In any normal situation, Jayne would be growling like a bear, but Amy and Penny seem to have double-teamed him into something resembling a pleasant attitude. Zoe, Inara, Penny, Kaylee, River and Amy all seem to be bonding in an alarming fashion.
“Wash?” he asks, because only he and Simon are nearby, and he’s not about to ask the doc.
“I like dinosaurs, Mal. Do I want to be stuck back in time with them? No. No I do not.”
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STILL IN THE PAST, YADA YADA YADA, A HANDFUL OF HOURS LATER
“Wash, if you can give a little more power-”
“I don’t know if-”
“I hardly think that that’s an acceptable-”
FLASH
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TODAY, THIS AFTERNOON, AT HALF PAST FOUR AND TEN SECONDS
Penny blinks, the solid ground of the apartment floor feeling weird to her at first. She spins, quickly, and there to her left is Sheldon, as if they’d never left. Amy and the Doctor are still standing over by their TARDIS.
“Where’s everyone on the Serenity?” Amy asks, still looking around in confusion.
“They must have gone back to their own time,” the Doctor says. “I think the TARDIS snagged us on the way.”
“You realize that all sounds highly improbable,” Sheldon says.
“We did just accidentally time travel back to Dinosaurland,” Penny says. “I think I’m going to let this one slide.”
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The Doctor and Amy leave after Penny secures a promise from Amy to come back and go shopping with her and generally hang out one of these weekends. Sheldon mutters something that sounds like it contains the words “respect” and “you” to the Doctor, but clearly that can’t be the case.
They wave goodbye and then the TARDIS disappears as they go off in search of food. (They’re all really quite hungry by now.)
Just then Raj, Howard, and Leonard come in the front door with grocery bags. Leonard walks right in, right through the area the TARDIS was mere moments before, and starts setting them down on the counter.
Raj and Howard are still standing in the doorway, frowning.
Raj leans over and whispers something in Howard’s ear. Howard clears his throat uncomfortably.
“Sheldon,” he says, “Why do you have lipstick on your collar?”
Penny blushes to her roots.
Sheldon says it was a matter of survival, but doesn’t stop glancing over at her all night.
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SIX WEEKS AGO, BEFORE THE FIRST MOVIE MATINEE OF THE DAY STARTS
“Look,” the Doctor says, “I’m just curious! How did they get that device in the first place? It doesn’t make sense.”
“So we’re going back in time to spy on them? Really, Doctor?” Amy sighs.
“We’re not going to change anything, I’m just curious. Where did he find it?”
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SIX WEEKS AGO, SEVERAL HOURS AFTER THE FIRST MOVIE MATINEE OF THE DAY IS OVER
“All right,” he says. “I give up, I'm bored, let’s just go.”
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THE VORTEX, HALF PAST THE DOCTOR IS STARTING TO GET PISSED OFF AT THIS
“Doctor-”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with the TARDIS! Oh, yes, fantastic, where are you taking us, you stubborn-”
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AROUND FIVE HUNDRED YEARS IN THE FUTURE. NOON. LUNCHTIME.
“We’re not on that beach, are we,” Amy says. Says, not asks, because she knows they aren’t.
“We’re-it looks like we’re around 2510? On some sort of spaceship?”
The Doctor opens the door, and Mal is standing there, looking vaguely put out. “Hello, Doctor,” he says.
“Mal, look-”
“Captain.”
“It’s Doctor, actually, Mal,” the Doctor says, patting Mal on the cheek with a smirk. Mal looks to be suppressing a lot of rage, so Amy thinks it’s probably in everyone’s best interests to start flirting with him. Plus, those pants.
“Doctor!” Kaylee exclaims, coming around the corner. “You’re back!”
“How long were we gone?” Amy asks.
“About…three weeks?”
“Three weeks,” Mal says, trying for even. “What’re you doin’ back here, doc?”
“…tor,” the Doctor says. “Doctor. And my TARDIS is acting up, and evidently wanted to stop here for repairs.”
“Oh, she’s real shiny, ain’t she?” Kaylee says, sliding a hand down the blue wood paneling. “Can I take a look inside?”
“I-ah, sure,” the Doctor says, wincing a little as Mal starts full-out scowling.
As soon as Kaylee steps inside she lets out a delighted laugh and spins in place.
“Oh, she’s just perfect! You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you girl,” she says, her fingers already running along the console, and even Amy can tell that the TARDIS’ hum has started to sound decidedly…cheerful. “I’ll just take a quick look underneath,” Kaylee calls back.
“What!?” the Doctor says, immediately starting to dart up there, and then he pauses, wincing a little like he’s being chastened.
“Doctor?” Amy prompts.
“Nothing, nothing, she just…she’d like Kaylee to take a look.”
One very awkward wait later, Kaylee finishes up and joins them where the Doctor’s sitting with his back to the wall, faintly sulking.
“Well now,” Kaylee croons, a hand against the TARDIS’ side, “She’s got a piece missing right out her insides, poor girl, that’s your problem.”
“She’s-what?” The Doctor half-trips up the stairs and then practically dives underneath the console. Kaylee follows and points it out to him, and they engage in a quiet murmured conversation while Amy make eyes at Mal and Mal leans in the doorway to make sure they don’t take off with Kaylee, no matter how many times Inara or Book try to talk him away.
“You know,” Kaylee says, “That part you’re missing…”
“Yesss?” the Doctor asks, unable to quite hide the hiss in his voice, because the TARDIS is practically cooing over Kaylee, and really, really now.
“It looks kinda like something I picked up a few months back - there was a piece of metal just like this encased in amber.”
The Doctor stops then and turns to face her full-on, eyes expressively wide.
“Oh, this is like Jurassic Park, isn’t it!” Amy says, smirking, and the Doctor waves a hand at her as if it would in any world ever shut her up. She sticks her tongue out at him. Right.
“Amber?” he asks, just to make sure, because-well, because, really.
“Amber,” she says.
When she shows it to him he sits down heavily.
“This is why Sheldon’s time machine pulled you here instead of the TARDIS,” he says. “This is the piece that was in the TARDIS. It wasn’t some random piece of lost time travel technology, it was from the TARDIS!”
“But how did it get here?” Amy asks, frowning as she looks at the amber. The Doctor shakes his head.
“It was in the machine, and then that Ceratosaurus ate most of the machine. At some point after, the device must have become encased in amber, and then all this time later it ended up in some souvenir shop, and Kaylee bought it. When I used the machine to try to pull the TARDIS back, it focused on the device here, instead.”
“But how did Sheldon and Penny get the device if it was in the TARDIS to start with?” Amy asks, frowning.
“I have absolutely no idea,” he says. “Maybe it hasn’t even happened yet-that’s the problem with time travel,” he says, “You never know what’s happening when.”
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Kaylee sings while she works. Amy’s considering the likelihood of Kaylee coming for a quick adventure, given that the girl’s a cheerful delight with unexpected loads of dirty stories that make Amy laugh.
The Doctor, on the other hand, is glowering. It seems the TARDIS was insistent that Kaylee help her.
“She doesn’t have special powers,” the Doctor says. “She doesn’t.”
“Of course she doesn’t,” Amy agrees, easy and a little amused. The Doctor glares at her, and then at the TARDIS for good measure.
“Traitor,” he says underneath his breath. He’s not sure which he means. (It’s probably both.)
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Kaylee gives them both a huge hug goodbye, and makes him promise to bring the TARDIS around for a visit sooner or later. The Doctor (grudgingly) agrees.
(Mal had softened a small degree when Amy had hugged him goodbye, just like Inara had told her he would.)
As they disappear away, though, the Doctor’s still rubbing a hand through his hair.
“It just-it doesn’t make any sense,” he says. “How did they get the device in the first place?”
“You’ve got that crumpled up frowney face,” Amy says, tilting her head a little to the side as she eyes him.
“But it doesn’t make sense!”
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EPILOGUE
SIX WEEKS AGO, DURING THE FIRST MOVIE MATINEE OF THE DAY
You can watch this video on www.livejournal.com
(THAT WAS AN EXPLANATION, NOT A PLAY-BY-PLAY)
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“This is so dull. Dull. You’re dull, Doctor!” Amy sing-songs, head pillowed against her arm.
“I’m not dull!” he says turning to her, outraged, and she accidentally snorts as she laughs at him, and then slaps a hand over her mouth, eyes wide.
“Did you just-wait,” he says, pausing for a moment, hand frozen in midair, “What was that? Did the door just open?”
“What?”
“No, of course it didn’t, it couldn’t, the TARDIS door doesn’t just open by itself. Anyway. Where were we?”
“We were leaving, Doctor!”
“Just a little longer,” he says.
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Penny and Britta see each other at about the same time, and they speed up until they can grab each other in a hug, bright smiles all around.
“Hey, how are you, how long has it been now?” Penny asks, pulling back to get a good look at her cousin.
“Too long,” Britta says, and for the first time since arriving in California she finally seems relaxed.
“So you didn’t tell me why you’re out here?”
“It’s a…thing. With my friends. In my study group? A thing.”
“A thing,” Penny nods, trying for a serious expression, but the both of them start grinning at about the same time.
“Abed wanted to go to Comic-Con, and so Troy was going to go, and Jeff didn’t want to go but then Annie said it could be a baby shower group activity type of thing and then Pierce said he’d pay for all of us, and…”
“So a thing.”
“A thing,” Britta agrees.
Right then, a small monkey scampers up between them before climbing up Britta and settling in her arms, small hands clutching an odd silvery-green device.
“Whoa-monkey!” Penny yelps, taking a quick step back, and Britta laughs.
“It’s okay, he’s Troy’s…pet. Except he keeps running off.”
“What’s he holding?” Penny asks, leaning forward curiously, smiling a little as the monkey watches her with wide eyes.
“I don’t know…he steals things. A lot. It’s a problem.”
“It looks all…science-y. And kind of important? Do you mind if I give it to the boys? They might get a kick out of it.”
“Look at you, with your boys,” Britta laughs.
“Oh shut it,” Penny declares, bumping into Britta purposefully, and they walk off, clearly enjoying themselves.
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FIVE WEEKS AND SIX DAYS AGO, AT A MILK-STEALING TIME OF THE MORNING
“Oh, hey, Sheldon, I almost forgot-look at this weird doohickey! Do you know what it does?”
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THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE STORY IN ONE CLIP
OR MAYBE I JUST REALLY LIKE THIS CLIP
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Finis
.