Nothing to do with me, just helping to promote a very talented team of collaberators who are working on a fully illustrated series of adventures for Clara Oswald and Ashildr/Me, taking place after the events of Hell Bent. The series commences May 16th 2020.
Official website
https://www.theuntoldadventures.com/
The Doctor was at a loss to know what they meant, Byron, Mary, all those at the villa that had graced her and her family with their company on this disenchanted evening.
‘Mrs. Doctor?’, no, no just Doctor would do.
But why would they care to assign her a lawfully wedded title?
Byron in particular had recently been separated from his wife, why would he address any of his pursuits this way?
And pursue her he did, it was almost flattering, but the rules of historical engagement prevented her from pursuing the matter further.
In truth, they were not wrong.
In another life, she had taken a wife, her parents having conceded to the union, the pairing were tethered to one another on the very edge of existence, time could not move forward without them.
With the mightiest tide of time, the river did soar, and its song was a name that swept across the ocean of stars.
She was a universe unto itself.
The song had ceased for that wife, though her own would never end.
And if her song could never end, who goes on singing with her?
She reflected on her role to her three companions, and came to a rather obvious conclusion.
The dynamic had been obvious to all those in attendance to the villa.
Quite right too.
So who did they assume she was married to?
She walked slowly around the console, creeping up on her three family members, those who had agreed to advance with step two of her plan to avert the rise of the Cyber-armies, her eyes trained and focused on one in particular.
She thought back to the fireside chat she’d had with him in the villa under the cold and daunting curtain of night, a heat of the moment argument between the two that now resonated warmly in her memory. Squabbling over things she didn’t believe in and a man’s failure to complete the sole task he was assigned to, keeping his eye trained on a wandering sleepwalker.
Mary Shelly, Byron and the rest had observed behavioural patterns such as this, and indeed, had noticed the instant Graham O’Brien made reference to the considerable distance she had placed between their transport and their destination.
Their conclusions were easy to understand.
As Yaz and Ryan wandered off to get changed, The Doctor steadily approached Graham, who was hanging around the console, almost expecting what was to come next.
She walked right up to his side and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek.
“What was that for Doc?” Graham asked, a little giddy.
“For giving me a minute” she said.
She encouraged Graham to get a move on, for there was a war to win.
“God speed gentle husband” she whispered.
DOCTOR WHO
A MINUTE PASSES
Author’s Note: Blimey, what an episode “Can You Hear Me?” was…character development across the board. I’ve noticed some have vented online about how The Doctor reacted to Graham’s concerns regarding his cancer towards the end, so here’s what I took from that scene.
It’s a fact of life. We’re going to die.
Be of brave heart, cry the distant flight attendants out of the living past.
All our songs, fluent as a River, will fall silent.
But what of it?
Maybe a man’s name doesn’t matter all that much.
Maybe the universe prefers one singular moment.
That moment was the twilight of life. The instant it ceases and slips into the either, and at last the universe is left alone.
For those who walk through eternity, the twilight of others is all that is constant, as is the loneliness.
They are a fact of the universe, they are the testimony of ages, they are the harshest lesson it could ever teach.
That’s how she would approach anyone who sought her expert opinion on mortality. So she takes great pains to conceal it.
Graham O’Brien had confided in her, telling her of his fears that the cancer he had fought so bravely against might one day return, how he had listened to the Doctors, and now turned his attention to the one he knew best.
She observes him as he airs his grievances, her arms folded, her eyes sharply focused, she stays attentive. Part of her is just lost in how dishy he was, the other half knows what is about to be asked of her, and she is not quite prepared to supply it.
She’s been so used to exploring and adventuring in recent months that she’s somewhat blindsided when someone she cares deeply for asks for her opinion as a healer, and to say the right thing. It had been a long time since she had performed duty of care, but she calmly reckoned something along similar lines was bound to come up. It is something requests in a family, usually with a relative or with a partner. It’s a level of trust that is far deeper and meaningful than just a mate you ride along with.
This is putting life and death in your hands, and asking her to be as brave as he is, she doesn’t know how to quite deal with it just yet, how to let him know how touched she was that he would let her into his life like this, but she lets him know she’s working on how she can best go about it.
All it would take was a minute.
In the most unsubtle way, she relayed her intentions. She would walk up to the console, look at something, and in the span of sixty seconds, work out what she could have said there and then, and that it would be helpful.
In reality, what she was looking for on the console was the TARDIS databank, specifically a document archiving all of the meaningful words she had written on the back of cue cards many years and one incarnation ago.
She had been honest enough to remind Graham how socially awkward she was, how the sort of responses he craved from her could not be fully expressed without sufficient preparation.
That was but a half-truth of course. The second side of the coin was that the twilight hours of all those who dwell within the universe weighed once more on her conscience, and she again took to concealing her frustrations with it whenever someone expressed fear their doomsday clock was ticking.
Graham took her response in stride, permitting himself a hearty chuckle, and letting The Doctor know it had been a worthy bit of chatter even if he had done most of the talking, he understood how deliberate she was being with her distractions. He took her at her word that she would find the right words.
She could take a minute to think it, she could take forever to say it, but he knew just what to make of what she was meaning to say regardless of how long the process would take.
He loved her too.
He was driven to live his best life aboard this ship, and beside her, regardless of how she chooses to deal with potentially losing him.
If his song is to end, he will go on singing
She suggests a trip across time to the others, a fact finding mission to discover the roots of the modern Prometheus. Of Frankenstein.
The family gather at the controls, all of them together, with their own distractions, doubts, anxieties, concerns, all of that took a backseat to discovery and adventure as always.
Fifty nine seconds tick by, a minute passes.
And the determined look the Doctor and Graham give each other is all that needs to be said.
Soaring across the skies of the heavy traffic junctions of Kledbal, Blue Transit was caught in a precarious situation. And the passengers hadn’t even tipped its pilot yet.
Colby screamed into the com-link attached to his helmet, desperate to hear a voice on the other end, his hands trembled as he tried to maintain his grip on the ship’s steering wheel.
“Red W, this is Blue Transit, I repeat, this is Blue Transit…its Colby, they’re overwhelming us, I need a clear as path as you light for us”
To maintain vital communication with Red W, there had to be a clear visual, something made impossible by dreary and murky clouds forming in front of him, making it not just difficult to see, but difficult to speed up the acceleration of the ship as he feared he might crash into Red W.
“I thought you said the skies were clear Doc”
“I can’t predict the forecast Graham, I’m not a weather person” said The Doctor.
“Yeah, well it’s a bit murky now, all those drones flying overhead emitting that flaky smoke” Graham pointed out.
“Sorry, are you telling me these conditions are deliberate?” asked Colby in a state of panic.
“Hey, you’ve got a good eye there Graham” The Doctor observed.
“It must be the work of the Kilaters, part of their protests” Colby explained
“Oh protests? Me and Grace did a few of those. All peaceful. Frankly she only went for the free cups of Nescafe they passed out on their tidier breaks” Graham admitted.
“Everything is under control, I assure you, and Red W will light the path” Colby assured his passengers.
“You’ve put a lot of faith in Red W, but how do you think they’re coping right now? They may need someone in front of their path to light their way”
“It’s so much easier where they are, it should be” Colby replied, desperation in his voice, almost needy. He depended on a clearer path.
“Well, we are not over there are we? But I bet you want to be, so own it, and take us high up. Go on”
Colby was hesitant.
“I’ve never broken tradition before”
“That’s what the Kilaters are probably counting on, they want to change the world around them because it’s inflexible, kept in the same corner, don’t just sit in that corner, kick away at it ’till you break down the barriers it forms a part of. Everyone on every world, be it your own or one alien to you, has moments where they refuse to sit well over there and light their own way home, showing everyone how big and brave they were for doing it all by themselves”
Colby pulled up, the gravity of the high altitude pushing his gums back over his teeth, but he preserved and Blue Transit soon rode clear of the fog, flying over Red W and making a beeline for home.
“You’d make a class substitute for Frizzle on the magic school bus someday Doc”
“River rode it, she said it was rubbish” The Doctor replied.
Fred lies comatose in hospital, Shaggy reckons he needs family, Daphne is sure she needs hers. (My headcanon epilogue to Be Cool Scooby Doo, aimed chiefly at Shaphne fans)
I was a little bummed that Daphne gave Fred a lot of attention in the “Professor Huh” two-parter, so I wanted to course correct it a tad. This is my epilogue to Be Cool Scooby Doo and is aimed chiefly at the Shaphne fan following. Contains major spoilers for the ending of the two-parter. Thanks.
Daphne was the first to receive the phone call, but Velma had been the first of the gang to arrive on the scene.
A look of stone was etched across her features, refusing to let any emotion in as the fire-fighters scrambled to contain the blaze and the paramedics scrambled to stabilise their patients’ body as they loaded him into the ambulance and transport him to the emergency wing.
Velma rode with the patient to the hospital, making sure to keep Daphne informed at every stage of the journey via phone.
The patient briefly stirred, and begged Velma to come closer so he could whisper a haunting truth in her ear. Velma immediately contacted Daphne to share what she had learned, knowing it would break her just as much as it had shattered the life of her friend.
Daphne knocked the door frantically on Shaggy’s front door, doing a few extra push-ups and rubbing her knees like they had heated blisters. She was eager to get a move on.
Finally, the door opened, Shaggy scratched the pits of his arms, his eyes barely registering with the person in front of him. His facial hair had grown by a couple of inches overnight, making him look far bushier than his usual appearance cared to look.
“Daph? Like, it’s eight o’clock, that’s no time for me to be up. Me and Scoob have our snacks at ten sharp; every other hour beforehand is our siesta”
“It’s Fred, his dad…he tried to kill him this morning” Daphne began.
Shaggy paused, he pondered, and he darted back inside, shaved the few extra inches of hair off his chin, pulled on his brown pants and green t-shirt, and woke his Dane Scooby Doo up.
“Come on, Fred needs family” he said, grabbing Daphne’s hand
“Somehow I think family is his least favourite word right now” said Daphne.
Arriving at the hospital, Shaggy asked the doctors where Fred Jones had been stationed.
Easier asked then answered.
There were numerous Fred Jones, some of them even had middle names like Quincy, and Shaggy had to end up describing Fred and showing the nurse photos of him and the gang on cases to get some traction.
All the while Daphne huddled closer to Scooby, gently stroking the back of his long smooth brown fur with her right hand, her eyes gazing into his big bright pupils, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a Fred Jones sock puppet, placing it on Scooby’s left paw.
“Could you do me a favour and bring Fred to life for me? I know he isn’t really dead, but I just need him in this room with us right now”
“Ree rizz Rang, rooks rike rhe riminal ripped through ror ringers”
“You can say that again” Daphne muttered.
“Ree rizz rang…” Scooby began again, delighting Daphne that he’d taken her literally.
Finally, Shaggy got word on where Fred had been transferred to, and told Daphne to get a move on with Scooby in tow.
They made their way to Ward HB 18, Velma was waiting for them.
“Like, how is he Velms?” asked Shaggy.
“He’s going in for emergency surgery, they estimate he’ll survive, but they’ll have to place him in one of those medically induced comas” she explained.
“Why did his dad try to blow him up?” Daphne asked.
“Yeah, like, how do you know it was him?”
“Fred told me he’d received a note, It was in his handwriting, it was also laced with an explosive ink that reacts to the words and self-destruct code uttered by the person reading the note out” Velma replied.
“How does that work if you DON’T read it aloud?” asked Shaggy
“Gullibility, Fred has it in spades, that and Plot induced stupidity” Velma added.
“Something about this doesn’t sit right, we know Professor Huh is a criminal, but he went to bat for us, helped clear our names, and in exchange all he wanted was his freedom, and Fred gave it to him, and then he goes and repays him with this?”
“You know something? It could have just been his way of trying to reach Fred with a sincere, heartfelt letter, since leaving a video message would mean the feds or Fred could deduce his last port of call, and self destructing the letter probably wouldn’t have caused half the damage it’d done if Fred hadn’t read it right next to the Mystery Machine, which was loaded with fresh fuel” Velma explained., trying to spin this is as little more than a tragic misunderstanding and accident.
“You’re saying Fred’s at fault here?” Daphne angrily snapped, flaying her arms wildly, her fists clenched, looking to make physical contact with a wall or anything and even any one.
“I’ll take care of this” said Shaggy, escorting Daphne away, leading her to a row of seats in the waiting area.
Scooby looked through the hopelessly out of date magazine, using the hands on the Fred sock puppet to flip the pages, showing Daphne outdated ads for hotels off a distant coast that had long shut down.
Daphne appreciated the history lesson, but felt like Fred needed to be taught one.
“He’s impossible” Daphne said.
“Who? Fred? You’re assuming a lot, we haven’t gotten his side of the story yet” Shaggy cautioned.
“It’s just how I know him, like a kid at Christmas, he’s so eager to open his present and see how thoughtful someone is of him that he doesn’t consider the journey that person’s been on, a journey, while good in intention, is paved to heck and back”
“Aw, you know him; do I detect a little crush on your end?” Shaggy teased, he and Scooby pinching Daphne’s cheeks.
“I don’t know, sometimes he could be so short with me whenever I did something impulsive, he wanted to keep me under control. As much as I like him, I don’t think I could be brought to heel like that”
“”You rike romeone, ret rhem ree” Scooby replied.
“Yeah, take it from me, in my experience relationships are a real ball and chain” Shaggy said.
“Reah, Rall Rhey Ro Rs Range Ru” Scooby spoke, again using the Fred puppet as an out.
“What if you could be with someone and resist the urge to change? To stay a free spirit?” Daphne asked.
“I think two free untamed spirits together can make for a wild party, but there comes a time everyone’s gotta keep their cool” said Shaggy.
“Keeping cool ain’t all that simple” said Daphne, peeling the Fred puppet off of Scooby’s paw and playfully chewing it, venting her frustration like an animal.
“A little salt?” she said, holding out her hand.
“Uh uh, we are reserving our pinch for the king size subs they serve up in this joint’s kitchens”
Daphne tossed him a Scooby snack from her pocket.
“Sold” he said, tossing her his small package of salt, which she poured over the head of the half torn sock, she swiftly chewed down on it.
Shaggy laughed.
“You’re not just a free spirit; you’re the kind of wild and crazy spirit that’ll spend a thousand years haunting someone’s hill”
“Only a thousand? What’ll I do for eternity?”
Shaggy elected to get more hypothetical.
“Gee, let me think, spend it with all the friends you meet that end up passing on? Sorry, I’m no good at this”
Daphne seized her moment.
“You mean something like a permanent relationship? A marriage even?”
“Didn’t you hear what Scooby said? What I said? Relationships change you”
“”We as a team all have a relationship to some extent, it’s always been something that goes beyond conventional friendship between the four of us, but our bond runs so much deeper than that, you said it yourself earlier Norville, Fred needed family…and right now I do too. Because it’s my favourite word to use around you and Scoob. You’re my family””
“Oh no, you’re not pressing this whole girlfriend act on me again, bad enough a relative isn’t around for it this time” Shaggy protested, folding his arms.
“It wasn’t an act then, it isn’t an act now” Daphne replied
Anxious, Shaggy tried to shift a couple of goalposts, veering back to the subject at hand.
“We’ll help Fred cope with life past this point, as a family, his family, the only one he can really depend on”
Daphne gave Shaggy an affectionate look, her bewildering eyes causing tension knots to wrap around the pits of Shaggy’s stomach.
Their body temperature rose simultaneously, Shaggy broke into a sweat, but Daphne, while considerably warmer, remained composed, she leaned forward further, Shaggy knelt down as she pressed her body against his.
Scooby looked away, occasionally glancing back to check if reality wasn’t collapsing on his owner.
To the contrary, Shaggy soon got used to the weight of this new world, and , with his arms wrapped warmly around Daphne’s thin shoulders, brought it closer to him, his legs rose up in response to this most rosy of invitations to paradise.
Velma swiftly walked in to deliver an update on Fred’s condition and found the two locked together tightly in a pitch of pure passion.
“If you’re quite done, Fred’s stable, he should be waking up in a couple of days”
“Relieved?” Shaggy asked of the bedazzling red head in front of him, who was now gently resting her head on his chest.
“I think Fred’s gonna feel real lousy when he wakes up and learns about, well, this”
“Ah, so you reckon he does like you?” Shaggy said to Daphne.
“He loves that I like him, but I’ve often wondered if he loved me back or liked me enough to just enjoy my company, guess we’ll never know now”.
“Yeah, like, you’ve made your mind up…and changed mine, about a lot of things, somehow that kiss made all the difference. Don’t know how, but I’m totally spell bound, maybe there’s some kind of magic to this after all”
“You ready to take a ride with this spirit? I’m free if you are” Daphne replied.
“We can take this ride slow or just as fast as this day’s been, so long as we keep our cool”
“Now now Norville, you know such things aren’t so simple” Daphne said
Shaggy planted a smooth kiss on her lips upon completion of the sentence.
DANGER MOUSE
HE CAME HOME
Snuggles could hear the cries again, they were quick to stir him from his slumber.
He leaned over towards Dawn, her head tossing and twisting on the pillow
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
Dawn carefully wrapped the sheet around her waist and got up from bed, heading towards the window close to the door, opening it and letting a draft pass through her body.
“He didn’t come home” she said, tears being blown from her eyelids by the strong winds.
“Which one of them?” Snuggles said, looking at two sets of newspaper clippings on the desk opposite the bed showing photographs of Danger Mouse swinging on a jungle vine, trying to avoid Snuggles in a loin cloth, and her father Augustus at a fancy social function, well dressed in a suit and tie.
“Does it matter?” she said.
“You can’t just sit back and expect me not to worry” said Snuggles.
“I tried phoning while you were out, I was looking for information”
“You used the phone without telling me? How long were you on for?”
“As long as they kept me on hold…the music must have looped fifteen times before I hung up”
“How long was the music?”
“Oh what does that even matter, it wasn’t exactly catchy” Dawn snapped.
“It matters to our phone bill” Snuggles replied, trying to keep his temper in check, now was not the hour to engage in heated conversation, his goal was to try and calm Dawn’s nerves so she could get her beauty sleep.
Dawn closed the window and walked over to a mirror; she grabbed a comb and began brushing her pigtails.
“I’ve never known such worry in my life, it’s so new to me…and it twists my insides like a pretzel, more so than rage ever does, is it any wonder why I get moody when I’m older?”
“That’s all part of growing up” said Snuggles.
“Whenever I’m a grown up, I’m selfish, I write off anything that annoys me before it has a chance to hurt me, or discipline me…maybe that’s why I tried to get rid of you that time, so I could be my own boss”
“I could never be your boss…boss” said Dawn, smiling as he noticed Dawn giving him a wink and giggling a little.
“Come back to bed Dawn, now’s not the need to worry, and you’ve got school in the morning”
“Can you check the news feeds for me to let me know if he came home safe?” asked Dawn
“What did I tell you about watching the news before going to bed? You don’t need to fill your head with all the chaos going on in the big bad world”
“He always said I was big and bad” Dawn whispered gently.
“And brave” Snuggles added.
“Just do this one thing for me, please? I can’t bear to look myself, so much for bravery” she said, slipping back into her bed and laying her head tensely on the pillow.
Snuggles sighed and headed over to the main living area and switched on the television.
The BBC’s lead news correspondent gave an update on a situation involving a fire at the International Fighting Flea Market Arena, which had broken during a fight between Danger Mouse and Dawn’s father riding what appeared to be a fusion of a flea and flypaper, with several gallons of oil attached to them, all having been ignited.
Snuggles listened to the news report intensely, as long as it took the update and interviews to wrap up before it moved on to the next topic, before switching off the television and walking over to the guest quarters.
Logic dictated he should have checked the guest quarters first, but he wanted all the details before proceeding, he wanted to be best prepared for whichever outcome awaited him.
There would no surprises with him, surprises were sudden, shocking, potentially damaging, and he did not want that inflicted on his young charge, she had enough baggage, and he had just as little patience for it.
Upon checking the guest quarters for signs of life, he came back to Dawn’s bedroom with a look of satisfaction.
“Well?” Dawn asked, almost succumbing to slumber but fighting against it until her curiosity was satisfied
“He came home” Snuggles said.
Dawn sighed in relief, and gently shut her eyes to go to sleep. Snuggles kissed her on the forehead and tucked himself in beside her, drifting off to sound and safe slumber himself.
Kara had been having quite a stressful day, or night, she wasn’t sure which at this stage, traversing the timelines of the multiverse in search of paragons and allies was proving as confounding to mind as it was stressful to her body.
Perhaps it was this befuddlement which was shortening her patience with The Monitor’s ways of trying to help everyone survive the current crisis.
She and Kate Kane, the Batwoman, entered just as The Monitor was identifying someone in the room as the paragon of truth, freshly discovered by her cousin Clark and his wife Lois.
“Lex Luthor played his role, and led me to him” he said, with Lex giving him a casual and mocking curtsy.
Kara was too fixated on what she desired to say to him to really take notice of who the paragon was.
“Oh yeah? How many people did he hurt to do that?”
Kara didn’t relent on spilling what was in her tired yet driven mind next.
The next few words she spoke would serve as a challenge to The Monitor, and to the way he was doing things.
“You think you’re a hero but you’re not”
“I think he’s kind of neat” said Lex.
Kara glanced at him with a look of dulled expectancy, as if to say “Well duh, of course you’d say that” before continuing.
She decided to move on the subject of who exactly was the paragon they had found, as far as she could tell they only had three, and the Bruce Wayne she and Kate had met had not been much of anything other than a disillusioned edgelord who had killed his version of Superman and had written off his world as something worth salvaging.
She found herself soon distracted by the buff but mild-mannered person in front of her, and suddenly something less appropriate slipped from her tongue, something she herself wasn’t expecting to say.
“Whoa Ray, you are looking jacked”
Her cousin was quick to correct her, coughing loudly to draw her in and alert her to her mistake before she could go further with the assumption much to her embarrassment.
“It’s your cousin…sort of” said Clark.
Kara’s face, in very quick succession, went from puzzled, to startled, to horrified.
Oh shoot. Kara thought.
How did I get so aroused by that?
He’s a parallel version of Kal. Clark. Gross.
I hope Lois isn’t giving me the look of daggers right now.
No, no she’d know I meant Ray.
Great Rao, why did I even want to say that about Ray?
Why would I want to compliment Ray like that?
I mean, maybe it’s because he looks so sharp and lean, maybe I kind of like picturing him a bit buffer.
No, no, why would I want to picture that at all?
We’re like ships that pass in the night, we’ve never had the time or a place in the universe to ask the other how we’re doing, how we’re feeling, or even to see what we’re doing on a weekend.
Maybe this whole crisis is the universe’s way of calling to both of us, to let us know its ok to try things out even at the edge of the end.
On the other hand, it’s a lot more awkward now because all I can think of when I picture him now is a buff cousin, and that’s not a good fit.
Kara in that moment chose to bury the feeling, and let the thoughts pass long into the endless realms of forbidden possibility.
