A Cool Day In Milwaukee

By Rob Morris

1957, Milwaukee

The Parking Lot at Arnold's Drive-In

The two businessmen tried to finalize their discussion.

"Well, I'd like to keep the name, if we could. Arnold's is something of a local landmark. Kids, they spook so easy."

His would-be partner nodded.

"This'll let me settle some business back in Japan. Probably save me a fortune on calling my mother every Friday!"

The prospective buyer (or buyer-in, as the case was here) chuckled, as did his new partner.

"I'm lucky—my mother is right here-heh-always here. Always here. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep."

Al Delvecchio tried to recover from his painful dip with small talk.

"So, is it an eventful place? Ya know, those crazy kids, always up to something?"

Mitsumo Takahashi, aka 'Arnold', shrugged dismissively.

"You'd think it would be, but after you get used to the music, and the kids and their problems, this is as quiet a place as you could want. Nope, nothing ever happens here-unless it involves—"

Twin lights in the sky emerged over the parking lot, actually outshining the neon sign that Takahashi was not able to afford to change, when he first bought the place from the original Arnold. Before the astonished eyes of the two businessmen, these lights became, respectively, an aircraft shaped somewhat like a child's top, and what Arnold recognized as a British Police call box. Though, he kept to himself, he hadn't known any of these could fly.

"Al?"

"Yeah, Arnold?"

"Let's finish this at Frank's Pizza-Bowl. Alright?"

Al looked up at the approaching crafts.

"Is it far from here?"

Arnold nodded.

"Other side of town."

Al nodded as well.

"I love Pizza!"

While this intrepid duo will now leave our story (at top speeds), let it be known that, when they reached the other side of town and their destination, one of them remarked about what a strange sight they'd seen, to which the other responded there could be no stranger sight in all the world.

After which, two strange young men said the following word to them at the exact same time.

"Hello!"

Back at Arnold's, the two crafts landed, and their odd assortment of passengers disembarked. From the top-like craft, a young man with curly red hair, wearing a cap emerged, shrugged and shook his head.

"Great! On top of everything else, we finally get home, and Arnold's is closed! I'm a guy who loves a good prank, even if it's on me. But this bunch of yucks can close shop too, as far as I'm concerned."

A young woman (or at least someone who looked to be a young woman) with twin-tails on her hair spoke softly, and to almost anyone's ears, regretfully. Her Brooklyn-by-way-of-Queens accent was no longer quite as strong.

"Ralph, I said I was sorry!"

Ralph Malph (of the Wisconsin Malphs, son of Mickey and Minnie Malph), fixed an actual cold glare on the woman.

"I don't know you, alright?"

A second young man, also with red hair (which he wore more or less flat) emerged, looking only slightly more sympathetic towards the young woman.

"What did you expect, Cupcake? We just found out that you were lying to all of us, and for a while now. If that other traveler hadn't met up with us, we'd still be wandering around space and time like three blind mice—or maybe the better word is stooges."

'Cupcake' looked over at the other craft. She was fighting back tears.

"Richie-Ralph doesn't want to know from me anymore. You're angry, and you don't even get angry at people. As to him-he wouldn't even travel the rest of the way here with us."

Richie Cunningham wanted to comfort this girl. But he was indeed quite angry.

"Most of us you just lied to, Cupcake. Him, you betrayed. Trust me, he really doesn't take betrayal well. I've never seen that man hurt, and you hurt him."

Looking flushed, and a bit angry, 'Cupcake' turned and looked at him.

"What does he want me to do about it? What do any of you want me to do?"

Richie struggled with words both grandiose and utterly repulsive. He decided on ones simple, and matter of fact. Three words that surely said it all.

"Sit On It."

Whether she had the right to pout or not, 'Cupcake' looked no less upset and perhaps even more anxious as the door to the call-box looking vehicle opened, revealing a man who had until very recently called her friend. He was holding a small dog in his arms, bundled like a baby.

"You're gonna be all right, hear me? You're gonna be all right. Hey, Doc, is he gonna be all right?"

Emerging behind him was the craft's operator, arguably its owner, looking like an older human male with white hair and a tall frame.

"Mister Fonzarelli, what was done to Spunky was neither truly harmful, nor irreversible, and now it has been reversed. Some small traces of his enhanced intelligence may remain. But rest assured, this 'Mr. Cool' is gone for good."

Arthur 'Fonzie' Fonzarelli, aka 'The Fonz', saw the woman he knew as Cupcake across the way, and made for her like a shot. Behind the taller older man, another young woman emerged.

"Doctor, you might wish to head him off, before he heads her off—as in off with her head."

The man on his thirteenth go-round in eternity's grasp shook his head at his companion.

"He'll do no such thing, Clara. But as to stopping a confrontation, no. She needs to know what happens when you lie to your companions without a massively good reason. Yes, I surely have, and I have surely paid, and now it is her turn, dearly though I hold her."

Clara Oswald began a thread that would be quickly cut off.

"I hadn't known you even had a-"

"Hard not to have some, when you've been about enough. I have had at least two more, wretchedly and disgustingly precious. Now that is done with, understood?"

She chose to let it be done, and so it truly was. They turned to watch Fonzie verbally crucifying Cupcake.

"First off, you be very happy that in my eyes, a guy who would hit a woman is pond-scum. Second, Cuppers, I am this close to becoming pond-scum, and not caring too much about it."

Cupcake's voice, already never a booming one, wilted in the face of Fonzie's fury.

"Fonzie, I didn't hurt him. I did it so he wouldn't be hurt."

Fonzie wasn't having any of it.

"You stuck stuff into my dog, and then made us forget about it! Tell me how any of that is not hurting, 'cause otherwise you and I have a real different way of saying what hurt is. And stop with the waterworks, Cupcake. They ain't gonna help. I can't believe I'm breaking your heart when it's kind of obvious you don't HAVE ONE…"

At this turn, the Doctor intervened.

"Arthur, that is enough! Whatever she has done, are you man enough to allow her to at least attempt to explain it?"

Clara silently mouthed words of awe that the Doctor had stepped in that direction, concerning the obvious alpha male prototype that Fonzie nearly incarnated, let alone embodied. But nor was the Doctor done, turning his attentions on Cupcake.

"Now is the time to reveal all that you have done, and why. You have lied to your companions on more than one occasion, and you owe them the full truth."

If Cupcake seemed out of surprises for her 1957 Milwaukee group, her next words were to prove this not true at all.

"You're a fine one to speak to me on how to treat my companions, and by way of someone with your record lecturing me on the truth, I'm apt to fall over laughing myself to death!"

The 1957 natives and Clara were struck silent by the complete shift in Cupcake's speaking patterns, till Ralph Malph spoke up.

"Why is Cupcake suddenly talking like Queen Elizabeth the Second?"

Fonzie for his part was still furious.

"So you weren't even using your real voice on us? Is anything about you real?"

Fonzie stopped, held up and moved his arms at chest height.

"The Fonz is in control-mostly. Okay, Doc—I owe you for fixing Spunky up. But that is the one and only reason I'm gonna listen to this girl any more than I have to."

New voice or old, Cupcake seemed to lose the nerve to use hers, so The Doctor began.

"I am called The Doctor. I, like your 'Cupcake' am of a race known as the Time Lords."

Fonzie looked the two time-travelers over.

"Hey, Doc? As far as race goes? You two are whiter than some Klansmen I got in a rumble with."

Richie was always amused by what his tough best friend didn't get. But it took a moment before he himself, as Fonzie would have said, caught the Doctor's drift.

"No, Fonz. I think he's saying-they're from another planet."

Ralph leaned against a wall, looking a bit peaked.

"Wow—wow—wow. This beats being on the run from that robot empire by a country mile!"

Seeing a concerned look on the Doctor, as well as Clara's face, Cupcake waved a hand in the air in dismissal.

"No, no—a completely different robot empire. Definitely not—them."

Fonzie didn't look that much better than Ralph – an idea that, if expressed to him verbally, would have earned the speaker a punch in the mouth.

"Aliens? I mean, aliens?"

Richie pointed out an error on his best friend's part, again without ever calling it an error.

"Fonz, we encountered aliens all the time while we were wandering. You encountered some up close and personal."

Fonzie shook his head.

"Yeah, Red. But those were aliens out there, ya know? These are aliens right here, on good ole' Terra Firma. The Fonz can't handle aliens on Earth!"

The Doctor heard Fonzie's ill-informed screed, thought about one of the most obnoxious species in creation, who Fonzie would indeed soon encounter, and actually sympathized for him internally.

*Nanu-Nanu, Arthur. Spoilers!*

In the midst of this, Cupcake seemed to find her voice – her true voice – once more.

"Well, we both have lived extensively on Earth. We are given to traverse time and space in crafts like these, which take on shapes that we either designate or are forced to live with. Encountering systems' failure, I set my craft down here, where it sensed someone who could aid us."

Fonzie nodded.

"Ayyy, Yours Truly, correct-o-mundo?"

When the Doctor looked plainly stunned, Fonzie smiled.

"It's a gift. So, Cuppers? When you landed, you really did need my help?"

She looked especially hurt by these particular words.

"Not all of it was a lie, Fonzie."

"Yeah, Cuppers, but a lot of it was. What about the junk you stuck inside Spunky?"

Clara showed little sympathy as she held the small animal.

"Love me, don't mutate my dog."

Cupcake closed her eyes.

"After we'd taken off, I realized Spunky hadn't obeyed your commands and stayed by your motor-bike…"

"Motor-CYCLE!"

"…motorcycle, and had in fact joined us on the ship. You three wanted adventures before we came back. But even if we'd turned around before going to a single one of these, time means passing through other places. Places that for us, would be adventures, but for a small dog, might well prove disastrous."

Cupcake petted Spunky as she kept on.

"I used some reformatting technology borrowed from one of the Doctor's grimmer associates to give Spunky greater intelligence and coordination, but used in such a way as it could all be undone. In his new form, you, Fonzie, commented that, while he had always been Spunky, now he was suddenly Mister Cool. It took only a minor bit of light-based suggestion methods to make you all believe that Spunky had always been Mister Cool, and always capable of speech and articulation."

Richie looked confused.

"But if you could make Spunky talk and look different, why did he speak so funny? Ru row rat Ri rean, Ronzie!"

Richie chuckled at his own joke. No one else, even Ralph Malph, joined him.

"Not good, Rich. Not good at all."

Cupcake had an answer for this as well.

"Originally, he spoke in normal, unbroken speech. But all of you found it too unnerving to hear a dog talk. So I researched, and found that, in your near future, some humorous offerings use the 'R-Talk' for animated dogs. It seemed to aid your acceptance of Mister Cool."

The Doctor looked at Cupcake.

"Messick? Blanc? Frees?"

Cupcake shook her head.

"No, Welker."

The Doctor looked on in apparent approval of the choice, as Fonzie brought the point home.

"Cuppers, maybe you were just trying to help Spunky out, and keep the rest of us from worrying about him too much. But you still lied to us-big time! The Doc here said that you could have brought us back here any time."

Cupcake looked at the Doctor, then turned back to Fonzie.

"Not any time, Fonzie. When we first began our journey, we really were lost, just as I said. But then we all seemed to be having so much fun, I couldn't bear to see it end too quickly. After a while of that-I couldn't figure out how to accomplish getting you home without realizing my lie. I wanted us to part on good terms."

Fonzie shook his head.

"If that's what passes for explaining yourself where you two come from, then good terms are not anywhere in the cards. Whoa! I need to clear my head. Who's up for a ride?"

Clara either sensed or picked up on a gesture from the Doctor as Fonzie readied his motorcycle.

"If you don't mind, Arthur, I'll join you. Your friends might wish to give the Doctor and our truth-challenged girl some privacy to have an overdue chat-the TARDIS is locked down, right Doctor?"

The Doctor indicated yes, but Richie showed his confusion.

"How is Fonzie's bike still here, after all this time? Ohhh-my folks are gonna be worried sick."

The Doctor waved a hand in the air.

"By your localized perspective, Richard, you and yours have only been gone about twenty hours from when you first left."

Richie breathed a sigh of relief, but not a deep one.

"Thanks, Doctor. But my folks will still pitch a fit."

Ralph shrugged.

"Mine, too-assuming they noticed. Jerry Lewis Film Festival this weekend, including 'The Comical Kamikaze - The True Wacky Story Of Awa Urashima'."

Fonzie found the solution as he revved up to go with Clara.

"Easy, Red. Just tell your folks - I had a family emergency in Sheboygan, and I asked you two to come along for moral support. There was just no time to call. Your folks will buy it - after all -"

He looked daggers at Cupcake.

"-it's not like we had any choice about when we finally got home."

Clara looked a bit stunned as Fonzie took off in a hurry. Also still looking sour, Ralph picked up Spunky and took him inside. Richie still had one more question.

"What about the magic?"

The Doctor looked puzzled.

"Magic, you say?"

Cupcake nodded.

"I installed certain of our technologies inside my clothing. The results weren't always precise, so I wrote it off as 'space magic."

Richie now looked and sounded annoyed as he joined Ralph inside the TARDIS.

"It's like Fonzie said. Is anything about you for real?"

Once they were alone, the Doctor took some pre-emptive strikes at Cupcake.

"My own sins are a matter of record. I'll neither debate them nor permit you to use them as a shield."

When she kept silent, he tried small talk.

"I'd say you look different from last I saw you, but that's a given, isn't it?"

Cupcake looked him over.

"I'd say you look different, but truth be known, you look closer to how you did then than I could reckon for. Is it true, then? You're onto a second cycle of regenerations?"

The Doctor nodded lightly.

"Yes. On-again-off-again-gone-again-Finnegan-and now on again. Like you being on 'Cupcake'. I distinctly remember a little girl who begged me to forget I ever knew that nickname."

Cupcake wiped away tears.

"Most memories of those lives and times are pleasant ones. I find I don't mind Cupcake so much, anymore. I couldn't exactly use my given name anymore, after how you made yourself better known."

She seemed to remember something.

"He really is quite good at repairing systems that should be flatly beyond him."

The Doctor showed his agreement.

"Let's just say that, to my knowledge, Arthur Fonzarelli is a man of unique heritage, and leave it at that. In 1968, he will learn of that and make some choices. Now, what of choices you have made?"

She closed her eyes, now, and held her head down.

"I think that I've done something horrendous!"

Since he could tell this wasn't about the lies she'd told, the Doctor let her continue.

"Than-Thank You. I believe some foolish action of mine may have erased one of their siblings from all of time and space. The worst part is, I have no idea how I might have done this!"

The Doctor actually began to laugh, to hear this.

"You think this is funny? The man's existence has been undone."

The Doctor tried to calm her down.

"You are referring, I believe, to the case of one Charles 'Chuck' Cunningham, young Richard's elder brother. Am I right?"

Cupcake lit up.

"So you do remember him? Thank goodness, because otherwise, only Arthur does, and him very vaguely. Can he be restored?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"No-the existence of Chuck Cunningham can never be brought back, because he never had one to start with."

Cupcake shook her head.

"I've seen historical records of local basketball games - scholastic and sports awards - but after 1955, it all simply vanishes."

The Doctor gave her a stern look.

"Never one word to Richard, understood?"

Cupcake looked offended.

"I'm not that stupid."

The Doctor was resolute.

"Three quite possibly former friends of yours might disagree. Now, as is said, SPOILERS! Charles Cunningham does not exist after 1955, but he also never existed prior to 1955. Long story short, there are a group of mystic monks here on Earth who safeguard an artifact of reality-shattering power from a rapacious amoral exiled entity. From time to time, they hide the artifact from this entity by incarnating it as a living being. As they do this, the memories of those around the incarnated artifact are altered to believe this new person has always been a part of their lives. Thus far, they have never permanently incarnated the artifact, withdrawing it again when their 'beast' has been eluded. Chuck Cunningham suffered the fate of many such efforts, as his physical appearance changed on multiple occasions, also straining the spell that birthed him. Howard and Marion Cunningham at one time believed this Chuck to have lived with them since birth. In fact, they all met him on less than twelve brief occasions, and now remember him only in odd moments that pass without comment when they are done with."

Cupcake saw the question in this.

"You know this how?"

The Doctor shrugged.

"Trenzalore. Empty centuries leave you tonnes of research time."

The Doctor finished his lesson.

"We've found out what you haven't done. Just how will you make right what you did?"

As daylight approached, Fonzie returned with Clara, and both seemed in a good mood as she got off the bike.

"Ayyyy-you take of yourself, my Impossible Girl. Doc, you are one lucky guy. Chicks like her do not come along every day."

As Fonzie made a beeline for Spunky, The Doctor struggled for words.

"You are - HIS - Impossible Girl?"

Clara looked a bit misty-eyed.

"Oh, don't be silly, Doctor. He's a stereotypical nice-guy 1950's hoodlum, complete with leather jacket. The man is a neanderthal...quite the neanderthal, at that."

The Doctor grew indignant by turns.

"I must ask exactly what happened between you two."

Clara smiled, and pulled his cheek.

"Oh, don't be silly. love. You don't want to know that."

Before the Doctor could press this, Cupcake walked right up to Fonzie.

"You asked for a better explanation. I think I have one, now."

Now out from inside the TARDIS, Richie and Ralph showed that they too were interested in hearing this. Fonzie gestured for her to start.

"Okay. This I want to hear."

Cupcake breathed in.

"The first thing to say is, I am sorry. No explanation can make my lies proper, or any of my actions into a good thing. The second thing to say is, I will return here each year on this date, looking for you. If you want a quick adventure-this time you can trust me. Third, I had forgotten what it was to travel with a lively group. I think my loneliness made me mad, and certainly foolish. Foolish enough to believe that not being alone was worth risking your friendship and affection, by holding you all hostage to a lie."

Fonzie gave his highest compliment-a thumbs' up.

"Now, that's what I call a good start, Cuppers. But now let's get at all the truth. Like, how long have you and the Doc here known each other?"

Richie added in his two cents.

"And who are you, really?"

Cupcake felt a burden lift, and went for broke.

"As to the Doctor, I have known him for all my life. You see, he is my Grandfather. My name is Susan."