Dancing Across Time (Book Two of The Bad Wolf Chronicles)

Chapter Three: Tooth and Claw

Jessie walked back into the TARDIS console room, checking her outfit of black tights, knee-high boots - ICER gun slid inside one, the real deal inside the other - a short denim skirt, and a pink T-shirt. "What do you think of this?" she asked, spinning experimentally. "Will it do?"

The Doctor snorted. "In the late 1970s? You'd be better off in a bin bag." She squeaked in protest, and he grinned at her before getting a CD. "Hold on. Listen to this." She burst out laughing when she heard what was playing as the Doctor nodded to the beat. "Ian Dury and the Blockheads. Number One in 1979."

"You're a punk!" she laughed.

"It's good to be a lunatic!" the Doctor sang along to the lyrics.

"That's what you are," she giggled. "A big old punk with a bit of rockability thrown in."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Would you like to see him?"

"In concert?

"What else is a TARDIS for? I can take you to the Battle of Trafalgar, the first anti-gravity Olympics, Caesar crossing the Rubicon, or Ian Dury at the Top Rank, Sheffield, England, Earth, 21st November, 1979. What do you think?"

She grinned. "Sheffield it is."

He grinned back. "Hold on tight!"

She grabbed one of the coral structures as the Doctor began to fly the TARDIS. She yelped when they rushed through the Vortex, and she laughed when he began beating the rhythm of the song onto the console. "Stop!"

The TARDIS stopped, and she was thrown to the floor. She hardly cared. She was laughing so hard, and from the sound of it, so was the Doctor. "1979!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet and pulling her up as well. "Hell of a year! China invades Vietnam." He grabbed his coat and went for the door. "The Muppet Movie. Love that film. Margaret Thatcher. Urgh." He opened the door, grinning at Jessie. "Skylab falls to Earth, with a little help from me. Nearly took off my thumb." She followed him outside. "And I like my thumb. I need my thumb. I'm very attached to - "

He cut off, and Jessie stepped out after him to see rifles right in her face. "Hey!" she whined. "Point those somewhere else!"

"My thumb," the Doctor said slowly. "1879. Same difference."

"And I thought twelve months late was bad," she joked lightly.

"You will explain your presence," the captain told them. "And the nakedness of this girl."

Jessie squeaked and looked down at what she was wearing when the Doctor spoke again. "Are we in Scotland?"

In a Scottish accent.

Her head shot up, and her jaw dropped at him, and he sent her a wink when the captain seemed confused. "How can you be ignorant of that?"

"Oh, I'm . . . I'm dazed and confused. I've been chasing this . . . this wee naked child over hill and over dale," the Doctor replied, still speaking in a Scottish accent and being extremely cheerful for having guns pointed at him. "Isn't that right, ya timorous beastie?"

I'm so going to kill him later, she thought, then gave a small smile. "Och, aye! I've been oot and aboot!"

He grimaced. "No, don't do that."

She couldn't resist. "Hoots, mon!"

"No, really, don't," the Doctor insisted. "Really."

She smirked at him when the captain spoke up. "Will you identify yourself, sir?"

"i'm Doctor James McCrimmon, from the township of Balamory," the Doctor lied easily. "I have my credentials, if I may." The captain nodded, and the Doctor took out his psychic paper and showed it to him. "As you can see, a Doctorate from the University of Edinburgh. I trained under Doctor Bell himself."