Richard Book is Innocent (
oxfordtweed) wrote in
tweedandtinsel2010-12-04 07:24 pm
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Hitchhiking (4/7)
Title: Hitchhiking
Fandom: Hot Fuzz/Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Doctor Who
Character/s:Hot Fuzz: Nicholas, Walker, Saxon; H2G2: Heart of Gold crew; Doctor Who: Nine, Rose
Word Count (chapter/total): 2,500
Rating: PG
Summary/Warnings: Green, bug-eyed monsters demolish the Earth to make way for a hyperspace express route. At least, that's what the people of Earth are told.
In which Arthur goes and makes an idiot of himself; something he's probably quite used to by now. Also, the Doctor tries to figure out just what the hell is going on.
Nicholas watched as Rose put the telephone back on the hook and shut the small compartment. "Wrong number," she said with a wink, unable to miss the dumbstruck expression that had washed itself over the inspector's face. "Come on," she said after a moment, when Nicholas flat out refused to stop staring at the telephone compartment. "I'll show you the inside."
"Inside?"
"Yes," Rose said patiently. "The inside." She opened the TARDIS door, stepping lightly inside. "Come on, then."
Jaw slack, Nicholas realised that he had nothing better to do and followed Rose inside. He stopped just after his first step.
"It's..." he started. He stepped out of the box, and quickly rand a circle around its painted blue exterior before rushing right back inside.
"Bigger on the inside," Rose said right along with him, secretly thrilled to finally get to say that bit. It was usually the Doctor that got that pleasure.
Nicholas took a few moments to find his voice. And then a few moments longer. And a few moments after that. "How?" he managed slowly, finally, looking around the room that simply should not have existed.
"Timelord technology," she said simply.
"Is that what you are?" Nicholas asked slowly.
"No," Rose said, trying not to giggle out of being polite. "I've already told you. I'm from London."
Nicholas nodded. He knew where London was. He’d grown up there. "Right."
The TARDIS door suddenly flew open, revealing that horrible sulking robot. "You're both wanted on the bridge," he said dully. "I can't, for the life of me, figure out why, though," he continued before shuffling away, letting the door swing shut behind him. His job had been completed, and now he was off to find a dark corner somewhere, where he could feel miserable. “Why do I even bother?”
Nicholas and Rose hesitated for a moment before closing up the TARDIS and returning to the bridge, finding the entire crew, and all its guests, lounging on the large circular sofa on the opposite side of the control panel. Why they were gathered, however, no one seemed to know or care. With Walker dozing, Saxon chewing on an old trainer, and Arthur drowning himself in yet another cup of tea, there really didn't seem to be any point to this meeting. Nicholas and Rose weren't even crew members, so he wasn't sure why they needed to be there in the first place.
"Good, you’re here," the Doctor said when he noticed Rose and Nicholas join the group. “Now,” he said, addressing the rest of the group. “Why are we here?”
“Forty two,” Ford said lazily. Arthur groaned and got up, presumably to make another cup of tea.
The Doctor shook his head. “No,” he said. “We were meant to land in London. Great Britain. Earth. Solar System. Where is it?”
There was an awkward shuffling as everyone tried to figure out of this man was intentionally having them on.
“Destroyed,” Trillian said simply.
Arthur snorted, sitting back down on the sofa. “Twice,” he said bitterly. “They did it a second time, just in case you missed it the first time round.”
The Doctor looked at the group of travellers and stepped back slowly, as though suddenly realising that they were all mad. Which, they very well may have been. “What?” he asked.
"Yeah,” Trillian confirmed. “I mean, we do tend to wander off course when we jump time, but I'm not sure how we wound up way back here."
"How far off course?" the Doctor asked cautiously.
Trillian shrugged. "Sometimes by entire universes," she said simply. "It's an easy correction--"
"You can't just jump between universes," the Doctor insisted. "The damage done is--"
"You're worse than the lot from the Campaign for Real Time," Arthur cut in, getting back to his feet. "It's not a big deal."
"What about Earth, then?" the Doctor asked accusingly. "Something that big doesn't just vanish."
"Enough about that stupid rock!" Arthur demanded suddenly. "I don't want to hear about it." He forgot about his tea and stomped off down the corridor.
But Nicholas did want to hear about it. He tried to think of something to say to excuse himself from the group, but failed miserably on that point, and just followed off after Arthur without saying a word. He found the man in his bunk. The door had been left open, but Nicholas still stopped at the door.
"You can come in," Arthur mumbled, slouched on the small cot he called his bed.
The bunk seemed well lived-in. Newspaper clippings in languages Nicholas had never seen and strange little cut-outs adorned the walls, and trinkets from most-likely all across the universe cluttered what little surface space there was. For a man that had been so far separated from his home, he seemed oddly comfortable living in quite literally, an alien environment.
"Sorry," Arthur said, straightening up. "I know it's all new to you, still, but..." he took a few moments to chose his words, "...it was a very long time ago, for me."
"I'm...not sure I follow," Nicholas said honestly. "How long have you been..."
Arthur inhaled deeply. “I was thirty when the Vogons demolished the Earth," he explained. He certainly didn't look anywhere near thirty, now. "I don't think I've been out here for longer than eight or nine years, but Trillian swears it's closer to fifteen." He shrugged.
Nicholas shuffled awkwardly. "Trillian's also..." he started.
"Yes," Arthur answered.
Nicholas couldn't quite tell, but he was certain he'd seen both Arthur and Trillian before. Unsure of everything, he looked around the small room once more, this time spotting a photograph of a young girl, looking none too happy about being photographed, attached to the small mirror. Arthur seemed to notice that Nicholas was staring at the photograph, and quickly got up from his bed. He took the photograph from the mirror, placing it face down on the cluttered counter top. "Come on," he said with a forced smile, leading Nicholas out of the bunk. "Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Let's get something to eat."
Recently, a remarkable phenomenon on the subject of parallel universes has been discovered. After countless field trials, the galaxy's leading scientists have reached the conclusion that not only is pan-universal travel not as harmful as some would have us all to believe, but in fact, the single safest way to plan your holiday.
For example, should you travel to a parallel universe on the probability axis and visit a trendy night club, and should anything terrible happen to you, the trendy night club, or even the wholly insignificant planet on which the trendy night club was built, not only would you remain perfectly healthy and intact, but you would wake rested and refreshed in your own universe.
It's such a popular way to travel, that it's become increasingly difficult to know who is from which universe, that an unforeseen side effect has taken the form of a sharp decline in violent crimes against tourists, simply because none of them seem to have any sense of mortality any more, and are too busy darting out in front of articulated lorries without looking both directions before crossing the street.
Nicholas leant against a counter that was part of a kitchen he would have expected to find Gordon Ramsay rushing about. Not some grubby man in a dressing gown who called a spaceship home. But it was the grubby man in the dressing gown that rushed back and forth, preparing sandwiches made with, has he described, Perfectly Normal Beast meat; which Nicholas logically pointed out that if the "Perfectly Normal" qualifier was required, then the beasts in question were clearly anything but. Arthur laughed to himself and returned to making sandwiches. When Nicholas said that he tried to avoid eating red meat as much as possible, Arthur proclaimed that nonsense, and pushed the small acrylic plate stacked with a sandwich into Nicholas' hand. Nicholas tried to say that he really wasn't hungry, but Arthur proclaimed that a blatant lie, reminding him that he'd already been on the ship for nearly two galactic days, during which time he'd subsided solely off unsugared tea. Out of options completely, Nicholas steeled himself, and ate the sandwich.
And he was surprised to find that it was actually pretty damn good.
"Is this what you did back in Gloucestershire?" Nicholas asked, having not previously realized how positively ravenous he'd become during his time in space.
"No," Arthur said simply, duplicating himself another collection of tea bags. "I worked for the BBC."
"Television?" Nicholas asked.
"Programming director for the overnight portion of Radio 2."
"Ah." Again, Nicholas couldn't shake the feeling that he knew this man from somewhere. "And that's how you met...er...Trillian?" he asked.
Again, Arthur laughed. "Zarquon, no," he said. "She was an astrophysicist. We met at a fancy dress party in Islington."
Nicholas nearly choked. He put the plate, and the sandwich it held, down on the counter just in case. "Wait a minute. Arthur?" he asked suddenly.
"Yes?" Arthur asked, adopting his terribly confused face.
"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes?"
"That woman," Nicholas said quickly. "Miss Mc--Trillian. She's been missing for six months," he said. "I questioned you about her, personally. You were our prime suspect."
Nicholas had been the questioning officer, despite the rank he wore on his shoulder. It wasn't because the Sandford constabulary lacked any detectives. In fact, Sandford employed two detectives. But DC Cartwright had been on his annual ten day leave of absence, during which time he had been helping his father with getting the orchards ready for the upcoming planting season, and DS Wainwright simply refused to do any work without his doppelgänger around, and took his ten day leave of absence to avoid doing any work. At the time, Nicholas thought Arthur's story about the man called Phil sounded weak, but he didn't have enough evidence to do anything about it.
"You told me she left with another man," he continued.
Arthur shrugged. "Well, she did," he said simply. "His name was Zaphod, and she wanted to see his spaceship."
"And the other gentleman?" Nicholas asked. "Am I to believe he's from Guildford, or something?"
"Betelgeuse," Arthur said, as though he knew a lot of people from Betelgeuse. "Well, a planet orbiting Betelgeuse, anyway. Zaphod, too. They're related...somehow."
Nicholas stared at Arthur, stunned. This man, despite being surrounded by countless oddities, seemed comfortably at home with himself. Nicholas was, in fact, so completely stunned by his sudden realisation, that he failed to notice Walker shuffling into the overly-decorated kitchen.
"Mornin', Angle," he said as he walked past.
"Morning," Nicholas said off-handedly.
And then he turned round. Quickly.
"Excuse me?" he asked.
He'd long accepted that the juvenile insults and harassment from the other officers would never stop. It didn't even upset him anymore. What caught him off guard was that he could understand what the old man had said.
"I said 'good morning,' you stupid prick," Walker said as he rummaged through the ship's massive refrigerator.
Nicholas could definitely understand him.
"When did you start speaking English?" Nicholas demanded.
Arthur once again adopted his terribly confused face. Walker adopted his annoyed face.
"I been speakin' English," he insisted.
"Proper English," Nicholas clarified.
"I been speakin' proper English!"
It was about then that Nicholas realized that every sign, label, and cereal box in the kitchen was printed in English. "What has this thing done to me?" he demanded as he prised the small yellow fish from his ear.
Arthur relieved Nicholas of the babel fish, dropping the creature into a nearby glass of water. "It hasn't done anything to you," he said. “They’re quite pleasant. I call mine Max.”
Nicholas peered wildly around the kitchen. "None of this was in English yesterday!" he pointed out.
Arthur looked nervously around the kitchen. "None of it's in English now," he said slowly.
Nicholas adopted his terribly worried face. "What?"
Walker pulled a bottle of sort of pink liquid from the Chill-O-Freeze 9000 and shook his head. "Stupid bastard," he muttered as he returned to the bunk he shared with Saxon.
"None of it's in English now," Arthur repeated. "This ship was designed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. It's all in Sirian. I only know what all this says because I've been here for so long."
"What?"
Arthur sighed. It was no wonder why Ford was always so annoyed. The man that called himself the Doctor wandered into the kitchen, curiosity piqued by the commotion. "Oi," Arthur said quickly. "You're a doctor. Take a look at him, would you?"
The Doctor shook his head. "I'm The Doctor," he said.
"What exactly are you a doctor of?" Nicholas asked, on the verge of a spectacular spastic fit.
The Doctor smiled. "You know. Doctor-y things."
Rose wandered into the kitchen, smiling lightly at Nicholas. He tried to return the smile, but he was too busy worrying about breathing properly to do it right. "I'll show you the rest later," she said softly.
"Rest of what?" the Doctor asked casually.
Nicholas shifted awkwardly, realizing that he probably wasn't meant to go inside. "She, uhm," he started, clearing his throat, "showed me your...police box."
"You took him inside?" the Doctor asked.
Rose shrugged. "Yeah," she said lightly. "He's a policeman. I thought he'd like to see something he'd remember from...Earth." Nicholas looked down at his feet.
"Humans," the Doctor muttered, shaking his head.
"Hey, lighten up," Arthur said defensively. "They've just lost their home. We all lost loved ones there. Have you any idea what that's like? To lose everything?"
The Doctor stiffened up, clenching his jaw tightly. "Yeah," he said simply. "I do." He turned round quickly and left the kitchen.
"He's a Time Lord, you idiot!" Rose hissed at Arthur before quickly following after the Doctor.
Arthur blinked. "That's not pretentious at all, is it?" he said.
"What's a Time Lord?" Nicholas asked, shifting nervously.
Arthur shrugged. He reached into the deep pockets of his dressing gown and pulled out a book, which had the words "Don't Panic" written in large, friendly letters on its cover. He located the entry for Time Lord, which was less than conclusive. It said simply, "A real zarking frood." Arthur shook his head as he started to close the book, barely noticing the footnote, written in small text, which said, "See Gallifrey." With Nicholas now looking over his shoulder, Arthur found the entry on Gallifrey, and immediately covered his mouth with his hand. The article was small, but the Guide has a way of saying a lot, without using a lot of words.
Arthur read the entry. And then he read it again. And once more, for good measure. And then he felt the need to kick himself. Hard.
The Guide says Gallifrey was -- that is to say, before being destroyed in the Time War -- home of the Time Lords. There are no known survivors of the Time War, although, there have been scattered reports of a man claiming to be a Time Lord. If you see a man with a blue box, the best course of action is to run in the opposite direction, as something very well may explode, detonate, self-destruct, or spontaneously ignite if he's allowed to touch it.
Fandom: Hot Fuzz/Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy/Doctor Who
Character/s:Hot Fuzz: Nicholas, Walker, Saxon; H2G2: Heart of Gold crew; Doctor Who: Nine, Rose
Word Count (chapter/total): 2,500
Rating: PG
Summary/Warnings: Green, bug-eyed monsters demolish the Earth to make way for a hyperspace express route. At least, that's what the people of Earth are told.
In which Arthur goes and makes an idiot of himself; something he's probably quite used to by now. Also, the Doctor tries to figure out just what the hell is going on.
Nicholas watched as Rose put the telephone back on the hook and shut the small compartment. "Wrong number," she said with a wink, unable to miss the dumbstruck expression that had washed itself over the inspector's face. "Come on," she said after a moment, when Nicholas flat out refused to stop staring at the telephone compartment. "I'll show you the inside."
"Inside?"
"Yes," Rose said patiently. "The inside." She opened the TARDIS door, stepping lightly inside. "Come on, then."
Jaw slack, Nicholas realised that he had nothing better to do and followed Rose inside. He stopped just after his first step.
"It's..." he started. He stepped out of the box, and quickly rand a circle around its painted blue exterior before rushing right back inside.
"Bigger on the inside," Rose said right along with him, secretly thrilled to finally get to say that bit. It was usually the Doctor that got that pleasure.
Nicholas took a few moments to find his voice. And then a few moments longer. And a few moments after that. "How?" he managed slowly, finally, looking around the room that simply should not have existed.
"Timelord technology," she said simply.
"Is that what you are?" Nicholas asked slowly.
"No," Rose said, trying not to giggle out of being polite. "I've already told you. I'm from London."
Nicholas nodded. He knew where London was. He’d grown up there. "Right."
The TARDIS door suddenly flew open, revealing that horrible sulking robot. "You're both wanted on the bridge," he said dully. "I can't, for the life of me, figure out why, though," he continued before shuffling away, letting the door swing shut behind him. His job had been completed, and now he was off to find a dark corner somewhere, where he could feel miserable. “Why do I even bother?”
Nicholas and Rose hesitated for a moment before closing up the TARDIS and returning to the bridge, finding the entire crew, and all its guests, lounging on the large circular sofa on the opposite side of the control panel. Why they were gathered, however, no one seemed to know or care. With Walker dozing, Saxon chewing on an old trainer, and Arthur drowning himself in yet another cup of tea, there really didn't seem to be any point to this meeting. Nicholas and Rose weren't even crew members, so he wasn't sure why they needed to be there in the first place.
"Good, you’re here," the Doctor said when he noticed Rose and Nicholas join the group. “Now,” he said, addressing the rest of the group. “Why are we here?”
“Forty two,” Ford said lazily. Arthur groaned and got up, presumably to make another cup of tea.
The Doctor shook his head. “No,” he said. “We were meant to land in London. Great Britain. Earth. Solar System. Where is it?”
There was an awkward shuffling as everyone tried to figure out of this man was intentionally having them on.
“Destroyed,” Trillian said simply.
Arthur snorted, sitting back down on the sofa. “Twice,” he said bitterly. “They did it a second time, just in case you missed it the first time round.”
The Doctor looked at the group of travellers and stepped back slowly, as though suddenly realising that they were all mad. Which, they very well may have been. “What?” he asked.
"Yeah,” Trillian confirmed. “I mean, we do tend to wander off course when we jump time, but I'm not sure how we wound up way back here."
"How far off course?" the Doctor asked cautiously.
Trillian shrugged. "Sometimes by entire universes," she said simply. "It's an easy correction--"
"You can't just jump between universes," the Doctor insisted. "The damage done is--"
"You're worse than the lot from the Campaign for Real Time," Arthur cut in, getting back to his feet. "It's not a big deal."
"What about Earth, then?" the Doctor asked accusingly. "Something that big doesn't just vanish."
"Enough about that stupid rock!" Arthur demanded suddenly. "I don't want to hear about it." He forgot about his tea and stomped off down the corridor.
But Nicholas did want to hear about it. He tried to think of something to say to excuse himself from the group, but failed miserably on that point, and just followed off after Arthur without saying a word. He found the man in his bunk. The door had been left open, but Nicholas still stopped at the door.
"You can come in," Arthur mumbled, slouched on the small cot he called his bed.
The bunk seemed well lived-in. Newspaper clippings in languages Nicholas had never seen and strange little cut-outs adorned the walls, and trinkets from most-likely all across the universe cluttered what little surface space there was. For a man that had been so far separated from his home, he seemed oddly comfortable living in quite literally, an alien environment.
"Sorry," Arthur said, straightening up. "I know it's all new to you, still, but..." he took a few moments to chose his words, "...it was a very long time ago, for me."
"I'm...not sure I follow," Nicholas said honestly. "How long have you been..."
Arthur inhaled deeply. “I was thirty when the Vogons demolished the Earth," he explained. He certainly didn't look anywhere near thirty, now. "I don't think I've been out here for longer than eight or nine years, but Trillian swears it's closer to fifteen." He shrugged.
Nicholas shuffled awkwardly. "Trillian's also..." he started.
"Yes," Arthur answered.
Nicholas couldn't quite tell, but he was certain he'd seen both Arthur and Trillian before. Unsure of everything, he looked around the small room once more, this time spotting a photograph of a young girl, looking none too happy about being photographed, attached to the small mirror. Arthur seemed to notice that Nicholas was staring at the photograph, and quickly got up from his bed. He took the photograph from the mirror, placing it face down on the cluttered counter top. "Come on," he said with a forced smile, leading Nicholas out of the bunk. "Are you hungry? I'm hungry. Let's get something to eat."
Recently, a remarkable phenomenon on the subject of parallel universes has been discovered. After countless field trials, the galaxy's leading scientists have reached the conclusion that not only is pan-universal travel not as harmful as some would have us all to believe, but in fact, the single safest way to plan your holiday.
For example, should you travel to a parallel universe on the probability axis and visit a trendy night club, and should anything terrible happen to you, the trendy night club, or even the wholly insignificant planet on which the trendy night club was built, not only would you remain perfectly healthy and intact, but you would wake rested and refreshed in your own universe.
It's such a popular way to travel, that it's become increasingly difficult to know who is from which universe, that an unforeseen side effect has taken the form of a sharp decline in violent crimes against tourists, simply because none of them seem to have any sense of mortality any more, and are too busy darting out in front of articulated lorries without looking both directions before crossing the street.
Nicholas leant against a counter that was part of a kitchen he would have expected to find Gordon Ramsay rushing about. Not some grubby man in a dressing gown who called a spaceship home. But it was the grubby man in the dressing gown that rushed back and forth, preparing sandwiches made with, has he described, Perfectly Normal Beast meat; which Nicholas logically pointed out that if the "Perfectly Normal" qualifier was required, then the beasts in question were clearly anything but. Arthur laughed to himself and returned to making sandwiches. When Nicholas said that he tried to avoid eating red meat as much as possible, Arthur proclaimed that nonsense, and pushed the small acrylic plate stacked with a sandwich into Nicholas' hand. Nicholas tried to say that he really wasn't hungry, but Arthur proclaimed that a blatant lie, reminding him that he'd already been on the ship for nearly two galactic days, during which time he'd subsided solely off unsugared tea. Out of options completely, Nicholas steeled himself, and ate the sandwich.
And he was surprised to find that it was actually pretty damn good.
"Is this what you did back in Gloucestershire?" Nicholas asked, having not previously realized how positively ravenous he'd become during his time in space.
"No," Arthur said simply, duplicating himself another collection of tea bags. "I worked for the BBC."
"Television?" Nicholas asked.
"Programming director for the overnight portion of Radio 2."
"Ah." Again, Nicholas couldn't shake the feeling that he knew this man from somewhere. "And that's how you met...er...Trillian?" he asked.
Again, Arthur laughed. "Zarquon, no," he said. "She was an astrophysicist. We met at a fancy dress party in Islington."
Nicholas nearly choked. He put the plate, and the sandwich it held, down on the counter just in case. "Wait a minute. Arthur?" he asked suddenly.
"Yes?" Arthur asked, adopting his terribly confused face.
"Arthur Dent?"
"Yes?"
"That woman," Nicholas said quickly. "Miss Mc--Trillian. She's been missing for six months," he said. "I questioned you about her, personally. You were our prime suspect."
Nicholas had been the questioning officer, despite the rank he wore on his shoulder. It wasn't because the Sandford constabulary lacked any detectives. In fact, Sandford employed two detectives. But DC Cartwright had been on his annual ten day leave of absence, during which time he had been helping his father with getting the orchards ready for the upcoming planting season, and DS Wainwright simply refused to do any work without his doppelgänger around, and took his ten day leave of absence to avoid doing any work. At the time, Nicholas thought Arthur's story about the man called Phil sounded weak, but he didn't have enough evidence to do anything about it.
"You told me she left with another man," he continued.
Arthur shrugged. "Well, she did," he said simply. "His name was Zaphod, and she wanted to see his spaceship."
"And the other gentleman?" Nicholas asked. "Am I to believe he's from Guildford, or something?"
"Betelgeuse," Arthur said, as though he knew a lot of people from Betelgeuse. "Well, a planet orbiting Betelgeuse, anyway. Zaphod, too. They're related...somehow."
Nicholas stared at Arthur, stunned. This man, despite being surrounded by countless oddities, seemed comfortably at home with himself. Nicholas was, in fact, so completely stunned by his sudden realisation, that he failed to notice Walker shuffling into the overly-decorated kitchen.
"Mornin', Angle," he said as he walked past.
"Morning," Nicholas said off-handedly.
And then he turned round. Quickly.
"Excuse me?" he asked.
He'd long accepted that the juvenile insults and harassment from the other officers would never stop. It didn't even upset him anymore. What caught him off guard was that he could understand what the old man had said.
"I said 'good morning,' you stupid prick," Walker said as he rummaged through the ship's massive refrigerator.
Nicholas could definitely understand him.
"When did you start speaking English?" Nicholas demanded.
Arthur once again adopted his terribly confused face. Walker adopted his annoyed face.
"I been speakin' English," he insisted.
"Proper English," Nicholas clarified.
"I been speakin' proper English!"
It was about then that Nicholas realized that every sign, label, and cereal box in the kitchen was printed in English. "What has this thing done to me?" he demanded as he prised the small yellow fish from his ear.
Arthur relieved Nicholas of the babel fish, dropping the creature into a nearby glass of water. "It hasn't done anything to you," he said. “They’re quite pleasant. I call mine Max.”
Nicholas peered wildly around the kitchen. "None of this was in English yesterday!" he pointed out.
Arthur looked nervously around the kitchen. "None of it's in English now," he said slowly.
Nicholas adopted his terribly worried face. "What?"
Walker pulled a bottle of sort of pink liquid from the Chill-O-Freeze 9000 and shook his head. "Stupid bastard," he muttered as he returned to the bunk he shared with Saxon.
"None of it's in English now," Arthur repeated. "This ship was designed by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation. It's all in Sirian. I only know what all this says because I've been here for so long."
"What?"
Arthur sighed. It was no wonder why Ford was always so annoyed. The man that called himself the Doctor wandered into the kitchen, curiosity piqued by the commotion. "Oi," Arthur said quickly. "You're a doctor. Take a look at him, would you?"
The Doctor shook his head. "I'm The Doctor," he said.
"What exactly are you a doctor of?" Nicholas asked, on the verge of a spectacular spastic fit.
The Doctor smiled. "You know. Doctor-y things."
Rose wandered into the kitchen, smiling lightly at Nicholas. He tried to return the smile, but he was too busy worrying about breathing properly to do it right. "I'll show you the rest later," she said softly.
"Rest of what?" the Doctor asked casually.
Nicholas shifted awkwardly, realizing that he probably wasn't meant to go inside. "She, uhm," he started, clearing his throat, "showed me your...police box."
"You took him inside?" the Doctor asked.
Rose shrugged. "Yeah," she said lightly. "He's a policeman. I thought he'd like to see something he'd remember from...Earth." Nicholas looked down at his feet.
"Humans," the Doctor muttered, shaking his head.
"Hey, lighten up," Arthur said defensively. "They've just lost their home. We all lost loved ones there. Have you any idea what that's like? To lose everything?"
The Doctor stiffened up, clenching his jaw tightly. "Yeah," he said simply. "I do." He turned round quickly and left the kitchen.
"He's a Time Lord, you idiot!" Rose hissed at Arthur before quickly following after the Doctor.
Arthur blinked. "That's not pretentious at all, is it?" he said.
"What's a Time Lord?" Nicholas asked, shifting nervously.
Arthur shrugged. He reached into the deep pockets of his dressing gown and pulled out a book, which had the words "Don't Panic" written in large, friendly letters on its cover. He located the entry for Time Lord, which was less than conclusive. It said simply, "A real zarking frood." Arthur shook his head as he started to close the book, barely noticing the footnote, written in small text, which said, "See Gallifrey." With Nicholas now looking over his shoulder, Arthur found the entry on Gallifrey, and immediately covered his mouth with his hand. The article was small, but the Guide has a way of saying a lot, without using a lot of words.
Arthur read the entry. And then he read it again. And once more, for good measure. And then he felt the need to kick himself. Hard.
The Guide says Gallifrey was -- that is to say, before being destroyed in the Time War -- home of the Time Lords. There are no known survivors of the Time War, although, there have been scattered reports of a man claiming to be a Time Lord. If you see a man with a blue box, the best course of action is to run in the opposite direction, as something very well may explode, detonate, self-destruct, or spontaneously ignite if he's allowed to touch it.