Another Boy, Another Planet

'When the moon hits your-a eye, like a big piece o' pie, that's – amore...."

The Doctor was singing again. And, Michael thought from the other side of the controls panel, this was something that was rarely good. He could carry a tune, that wasn't the problem. It was his song choice that was the issue. Three weeks, now, three weeks of hurtling through time and space, getting buddy with aliens and busting up intergalactic mafioso protection rackets. And all of them, the Doctor had spent intermittently, tunefully, whistley-ly working his way through the Rat Pack songbook.

Not that Michael wasn't capable of appreciating the songsmithery and suave style and brio of Sammy, Dean, Frank and the gang. But at this point he would have appreciated a bit of Pearl Jam. Or Lorde. Or One frigging Direction, just for the sake of a change. Harry Styles warbling the Go Compare opera singer jingle would have been an improvement.

James wouldn't hear of it, though.

Oh, oops. Not James, of course, Michael thought, only a trifle mutinously. The Doctor. Thirteen, if you were counting. Unlucky for some.

Who was opening up the Tardis door, now, for a peek outside, at the latest destination on their trouble-shooting road-trip-cum-cruise through all of time and space. A little cautiously, because a new planet was always a bit of a gamble, even if the Doctor was quite sure – one hundred percent sure – fairly sure, even, where he'd steered and landed them.

"Ta-da!" But it was all right, apparently – because after a first cautious peek, barely getting his nose out the door, the diminutive Galleyfreyan then swung it wide, with a beaming grin that sat well upon rampaging freckles. Michael wondered, sometimes, if freckles were a Galleyfreyan thing, or a Thirteen thing. And what the Doc's own previous incarnations would have made of his Ted Baker polo shirt, sandy-twill jeans and caterpillars get-up. Bit informal, next to bow-ties and lovingly auntie-knitted scarves, surely?

Still, he was wittering on as usual. Better pay attention. They'd had a rip in the fabric of space-time last time he'd let his mind wander. Nasty. "Cherrybomb! Planet of delicious vegan ice-cream sodas and free automotive upgrades! Last time I was here they tried to overhaul the Tardis, give it a bit of welly and some ridiculous skirting bodywork! Free, of course, and very kind of 'em, but the old girl wasn't having it. She doesn't look well in skirts anyhow, and the big monster exhaust they tried to put on, ridiculous. Jeremy Clarkson, how he would have larfed. Last time he popped in he stripped her down and overhauled the innards. Said it was like de-modding a golf-cart. Look, you can tell it's Cherrybomb, the curious violet shade of the sky is very characteristic – "

"OH PRAISE THE LORD AMORE FOR HE HAS COME DOWN TO US ONCE MORE! ONCE MORE IN HIS LITTLE BLUE BOX FOR US TO WORSHIP AND ADORE! AND HE WILL CHOOSE MANY PARTNERS TO INSEMINATE WITH THE TOOL OF TIMELORDS! FECUNDITY WILL COME TO THE PLANET AMORE NOW THE LORD HAS – "

Bosh. That was the door of the Tardis slammed shut on a spontaneous high-pitched chorus, sounding something like a host of angels, seraphim on helium. Backed up by the sudden eruption of a truly impressive sound-system, something pinched from Glasto maybe, bursting into My First, My Last, My Everything. And that was the Doctor, slammed with his back up against it, suddenly pale and visibly sweating. Michael thought it seemed as if it might be urgent. He ceased and desisted from playing flick golf on the touch-screen of Tardy's controls. Well, after making a stupendously unstoppable move that would have her in the rough. *cough*

"Little problem, is there?" he enquired, casually sauntering over and up to the charming double-ventricled space-alien who had dubbed him 'Companion' for the last six months. That, ever since he wandered in during a spectacularly slaughtering night's clubbing in London, under the altered-state misapprehension that it was one of those free-standing automated public conveniences. Well, there had to be some credible explanation.