The Doctor And The Sweeper

Lu-Tze ambled along the corridor, humming to himself. The passing novices kept giving him furtive glances which he blithely ignored as he passed them, happily sweeping the floors.

In truth, he was rather bored. He missed his old novice, Lobsang. The boy had shown considerable promise, before being whisked away to attend what Lu-Tze liked to refer to as familial matters. The boy had only been gone for a couple of months, it was true – but when, like Lu-Tze, you dealt with time, two days could be a very long time. He knew he should not be bored – for was it not written, 'there's always something to be done, so go and wash those dishes.' And so, Lu-Tze remained at the monastery, sweeping and listening and offering his advice when it was not asked for. He had a feeling that he would be needed soon. He always was, eventually.

He finished sweeping the corridor, and decided to attempt to clear the gardens of the cherry tree leaves which persisted in falling on his miniature mountains. He had recently perfected a range of impressively realistic bonsai volcanoes. Of course, their best feature was the way in which they tended to explode just at the most nervous, most timid of the novices passed by; a fact which Lu-Tze found highly amusing.

As he absentmindedly swept up the ash from their last eruption, he noticed a rather interesting thing. The ash (which was a light purple, the one thing he had been unable to recreate accurately) had fallen in an unusual swirl. A swirl which looked remarkably like that of the patterns of chaos in the Mandala.

"That's interesting. That's very interesting." He muttered to himself as he bent down to examine it, earning him a rather nervous smile from a passing neophyte.

"Well, that decides it. Boy!" The neophyte jumped at the sudden shout, which was surprisingly loud despite Lu-Tze's short stature. The boy's eyes widened, and he nervously walked back to the monk.

"Y-yes, sweeper?" He stammered. Lu-Tze grinned wickedly; after all, torturing the novices was one of the more interesting perks of working at the monastery.

"I'm going to Ankh Morpork. Let the Abbot know, will you?" And with that, Lu-Tze set off on the footpath to the city, broom in tow.

"You'll like it here, Rose," the Doctor said excitedly as he set the TARDIS controls. "Just – try not to eat anything. Especially if it's being offered by one of the street vendors."

"Why?" She laughed, dodging out of his way, "It can't be any worse than that Indian restaurant mum took us to at New Year!"

The Doctor frowned at the console, adjusting a lever. "Oh, I don't know." He looked up at Rose and grinned, suddenly. She couldn't help but grin back.

"This really is a bit much, don't you think?" Soto asked his companion as he stared out the window into the garden. "I mean, the man's been here for weeks. I know it's Lu-Tze and all that, but it doesn't mean I have to like him."

"Infuriating little man, isn't he? Always spouting off the sayings of that Mrs Cosmopilite of his. Bloody stupid, if you ask me."

It was, unfortunately, at this point that the man in question returned to the house, having finished his cigarette and discarded the stub amongst the litter of the garden.

"Everything alright in here?" He asked innocently. "For the scriptures advise that you should 'get it off your chest if something's bothering you."

Amid flustered apologies and grovelling, Lu-Tze ventured out into the city. His guest should be arriving about now.

"Err, Doctor?" Rose said, stepping cautiously over a puddle that was far too solid to be simply water. "Are you sure that we're going the right way?"

"Course we are! I never get lost. At least, not often." He held out his hand to her. "You, on the other hand… Keep hold, it's easy to get separated."

They weaved in and out of the crowds, Rose staring, fascinated, at the merchants hawking all kinds of strange produce, the shop fronts and the bizarre buildings around them. There was a huge variety of people in the hustle and bustle of the street markets, some of whom were more unusual than others.

Her eyes widened. "Doctor, was that-?" She shouted over the noise of the street.

"A vampire? Yes! Keep an eye out, you might see trolls and werewolves before we're done. We're nearly there now – see that shop over there?" He pointed to a small, shabby looking shop front just ahead. There was a battered wooden sign hanging over the door, although what the picture was supposed to be, Rose couldn't tell.

"It's a second-hand shop," the Doctor yelled, "but don't worry, we're not here to go shopping!"

He pushed his way through the throng towards the door, Rose following just behind. A bell chimed at the back of the shop as they entered. It was oddly quiet inside, and rather gloomy.

Rose was looking curiously around – there were some very strange artefacts on the shelves, which reached high up into the ceiling, including a rather startling number of cuckoo clocks. She shrugged to herself – maybe they were a local speciality, like in Switzerland.

She was about to move to examine one further, when a strange figure entered the shop from a back room Rose hadn't noticed. It was a man – a very short, very bald, very yellow old man. He was wearing some sort of robe – a monk, perhaps? – in a vivid saffron, albeit a rather faded, unkempt, vivid saffron.

"Doctor!" The little man smiled, and walked forward to embrace the Doctor. Rose tried very hard not to smile – the monk barely reached the much taller Doctor's midriff. The amused look which the Doctor shot to her over the top of the monk's head didn't help her, either.

"Rose, this is Lu-Tze. Sweeper – my companion, Rose." She stepped up and offered her hand to the little man, who looked at it, puzzled for a moment, before clasping it in both of his.

"Nice to meet you." He turned to the Doctor. "What happened to your last little friend?"

The Doctor began to answer, but was interrupted by the Sweeper. "No matter. I was hoping you'd be here sooner, to be honest. Things have been going awry for some weeks now."

The Doctor nodded in understanding. "Any idea what's causing it?"

"I think one of the spinners has gone out of whack. I'd appreciate it if you'd take a look."

"Certainly. We'll need to go back to the monastery, though." The Doctor looked at Lu-Tze warily. "I'm not sure I want you in the TARDIS again after last time though. I think we'll take horses."

Lu-Tze's face fell, but he sighed resignedly. "Wait here. I'll fetch my broom."

Rose walked over to the Doctor and slipped her arm through his. "What happened last time?" She asked curiously, smiling.

The Doctor grinned. "I forgot rule one." His grin widened at the look of puzzlement on her face. "Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men." He laughed at her bemused expression.

"Right…" Rose was about to ask exactly what 'incautiously' involved, when the monk returned. He was carrying a sweeping brush over one shoulder.

"And I thought he was joking." Rose muttered to herself. The Doctor must have heard, because he shot her a grin.

"Lets go pick up our rides." He held out a hand, which Rose took eagerly.

"I've never ridden a horse before. Is it hard?" She asked. To which Lu-Tze simply laughed.

She really wasn't sure she liked this man.

The only horses they could find were being sold by the Watchmen – they must have been repossessed from some criminal, Rose assumed, but she didn't like to ask. The man who had sold them to the Sweeper had looked very strangely at the Doctor, and kept asking if he'd met him before. The Doctor had been even more evasive than usual, so she suspected that if they had met, it hadn't been in the best of circumstances.

That had only taken an hour or so – they had spent the remainder of the last two days travelling. It hadn't taken Rose long to realise that horse riding was not the most comfortable way to travel. She hadn't been able to sit down when they'd stopped at a pub – although they were called 'inns' here – for the night.

As they approached the monastery, Rose noticed more and more of the monks in orange. Most of them seemed to be a lot, well, cleaner than Lu-Tze though. But that was unfair; she'd actually begun to like the outspoken, rather ridiculous man over the past couple of days. Although neither of them had told her, she guessed that the Doctor and the Sweeper knew each other rather well; they kept making jokes about someone called Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler.

Once inside the monastery, Lu-Tze cornered a novice. They left their horses with him, and proceeded on through the gardens.

"You seem to have gained some respect since I last visited." The Doctor remarked.

"Oh," Lu-Tze chuckled, "that's just because I managed to beat up time. It won't last. Never does! They have Rule One drilled into them, over and over, but the first thing they do is forget it."

He led them through the Garden of Five Surprises. Rose was very impressed (and definitely surprised) by the yodelling stick insect, and she'd never seen anything like the miniature mountains. Then Lu-Tze led them down a dark and deserted corridor to the most bizarre room Rose had ever seen. It was full of huge cylinders, all of them spinning remarkably fast.

The Doctor had raised his eyebrows as soon as they entered the room, muttered under his breath about something being 'not quite right' and wandered off into one of the darker corners of the huge place.

"They're called procrastinators," Lu-Tze had explained. "We use them to move and store time." Rose had only been half listening; there was a dull but powerful throb of something coming off the procrastinators that was very distracting. There were yellow clad monks all over the room, all with a sense of urgency, all working in silence. Rose and the Sweeper had been standing making small talk in the uncomfortable quiet that this left for a couple of minutes, when, suddenly, the throb intensified.

"Did you feel that?" She asked Lu-Tze, worried. The monk had frowned.

"You mean, you did? How – odd. Not many people can." He cocked his head, looking intently at her.

"What was it?"

"One of the spindles being put back in time with the others. The Doctor must have sorted it."

That was it? Rose wondered. Seemed a lot of trouble to have travelled all this way, just for a few minutes of work.

The Doctor came back into sight, dusting his hands off.

"All done!" He called cheerfully. "Just keep an eye on that last one, it feels a little temperamental."

"Thank you." Lu-Tze bowed. "I look forward to seeing you in the future."

And that was it. They used the TARDIS remote control to retrieve it (startling a young apprentice of the Assassins' Guild, who then received major criticism from his tutor for not maintaining his unruffled demeanour when the police box disappeared from behind him), said their goodbyes, and left.

"So?" Asked the Doctor once they were safely inside the TARDIS. "What did you think?"

"It was very – different. And I think I rather liked Lu-Tze. But why did we go?"

"Why not? But the monks like to ask my advice every so often. They had a visit from someone – unusual – not that long ago, and it sent the procrastinators out of kilter." He shrugged. "They could have dealt with it themselves, but I like to make sure that they're working properly myself."

"You're never happy unless you're doing something yourself, are you?" Rose laughed. "Where are we off to next then?"

"Well, I thought we'd try and track down an old friend. Her name's Susan…"

This fic was inspired by the adverts for episode two of David Tennant's (first? Hopefully not the only!) series as the Doctor, and the monks doing what I swear is deja-fu! But I was encouraged by livebrave , drakyndra and thesandwalker, so you can blame them as well!

Apologies for any strange formatting; just doesn't get on well with me, I'm afraid!