Disclaimer: See Chapter One.
Well folks, this is the last chapter. ^_^ Thanks again for your reviews. This fic will eventually be moved to the Whovian section thanks to the advice of those who answered my Author's Challenge ^_^
LORD OF THE WHO?
Chapter 4: The Jellybeans of Doom
"All right," the Doctor said sternly as the TARDIS fell through the Vortex. "Let's review. Gandalf is imprisoned in the dungeon of Orthanc, not atop the tower as in both primary timestreams. Gwaihir may as well have eaten that moth, for it carried no message, and he is still in his eyrie. Gandalf evidently needs Narya in order for his battle with Saruman to have the proper outcome. Because our good Wizard couldn't get to Rivendell to help Elrond in surgery, Frodo is dead. At the Council, Boromir was appointed the Ring-- politics and all that-- and he has marched to Minas Tirith after tying the rightful King, Aragorn, up in a boat and sending him over the falls. The situation is critical. Got that?"
"Right. So now we give the Ring of Fire back to Gandalf at Orthanc."
"Wrong. You and Galadriel both. We have to go back to the exact point in time when I crash-landed in Buckland, jump-start the TARDIS, and give Gandalf his ring back before taking off again. That will repair everything."
"I think you're the one wrong this time, Doctor."
"What??"
"You have to go back before you crash-landed and fix whatever was wrong with the TARDIS so you don't."
Long silence.
The Doctor sighed heavily. "All right. I suppose we can do this the hard way."
Leela smiled triumphantly. "You, Doctor, are lazy!"
"Well you are illiterate-- no, I can't say that any more, can I...? Right. It's off to the hardware market then."
"Can you reach it from here?"
"Hm. Another good point. Could spend five hundred years trying to hit Betelgeuse from here. We had better send an order instead."
Even sent by GALAXY EXPRESS, the shipment of TARDIS parts took almost two subjective weeks to arrive. While the Doctor spent much of his time with only his feet sticking out from beneath the control console, cursing and getting his scarf stuck in the Time Rotor, Leela plowed her way doggedly through the great red book. The barrier had been broken; she could read, and as she followed the story deep into the Forest of Fangorn and high into the Mountains of Mordor, she became more and more concerned about the Doctor's interference in it. "This is so complicated. Will we ever be able to really set it right?" she asked at the end of the first week.
The Doctor was backing out from under the demolished console, a spanner in one hand, while K-9 dragged his scarf to safety. "This?" he said. "This is nothing. I've mucked up entire universes!"
She put the book aside, marking her place carefully. "Can we watch the Jackson documentary now?"
The Doctor pursed his lips thoughtfully, frowning. "Not yet. But we can watch the out-takes." At Leela's puzzled look he added: "The bits and pieces left out of the finished work."
"Why the out-takes?"
"They're more fun!"
* * *
"Interesting!" said the Doctor as they made their way from the auditorium. "There was no scene of me crashing in Buckland. It was always there before, just after Gandalf falls off his eagle. I always remember my own scenes. But this time there was just the one where I waved while being chased past the camera by those Orcs. That's good. That's very good. It means we've already fixed the problem just as soon as our shipment comes in."
The TARDIS parts came from Betelgeuse Hardware at last, via a smuggler's ship with a fast hyperdrive, and the Doctor immediately got to work.
* * *
"There! All finished," he said, dusting his hands and surveying the newly repaired console with the air of someone who has finally fixed a particularly annoying problem after ignoring it for twenty years. "Leela? Leela! Why ever are you crying?"
She closed the book slowly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I've finished," she said simply.
There wasn't anything to say. The Doctor had tea and cookies and offered her some. She refused. He shrugged and dozed off for several hours.
Waking suddenly in the middle of ship's night, the Doctor's first sight was Leela, sound asleep, curled up on the hard floor with her arm over the great red book. The Doctor smiled, got up and retrieved his jacket to lay it over her. Then he made his way to the timeship console. Muttering under his breath, he punched up the Timestream Overview.
"Ah!" he exclaimed in satisfaction as Gandalf strode about restlessly atop the Tower of Orthanc. Moments later, Gwaihir arrived and carried him off. "Yes!"
"Doctor?" said Leela, right by his ear. "What's going on?"
He jumped, then turned to her jubilantly. "Frodo lives!"
And sure enough, there was the little Hobbit, trooping resolutely toward Mordor, followed by Sam who was lugging far too heavy a pack.
"Then that solves everything, Doctor!"
"It appears to," said the Doctor, still watching the scenes flash by. "Very good... Um, Aragorn is still alive, Boromir went over the falls instead, and Shelob's where she should be... King Theoden. Poor chap. Do you know he was a first-class polo player in his youth...?
"I say! Rosie Cotton going out with Ted Sandyman? Wait one minute! Let's slow down here... Oh good gracious me, look at the Shire! It's covered with the oddest bushes... Leela, does the book make any mention of unusual shrubbery appearing in Hobbiton?"
"No. Except for that one Ent in the beginning."
"Neither does Dr. Jackson. We must check this out."
The TARDIS materialized on a hill at the edge of Bywater. When the Doctor emerged, he gaped in horror. The evil-looking bushes covered everything-- the road (now little-used;) the abandoned dwellings, even the shuttered tavern. The only animate things seemed to be a flock of goats on a nearby hillside, and some crows of the Dunland variety which were picking small brownish fruits from the ground.
The Doctor snatched one from a bush. "Hmm. Looks all right. The hue is a bit off. Let me see." And he popped it into his mouth, chewed twice, then froze in horror.
"Doctor!" Leela grabbed his arm. "Doctor??"
He gulped, made a face, and said: "It's a Bertie Botts! These are Botts Bushes-- not regular jellybeans at all! They're pernicious! Oh my! Leela! Do you see any of a different color, or are they all the same?"
"All the same, as far as I can tell."
"That's what I see too." Calming down somewhat, the Doctor put his hand in his pocket and came up with more jellybeans. "Now this one Ought to be licorice, and quite nice too after that cow-muck flavored bean. Yes... Mmmmm! I can only speculate that somehow a single Botts Bean was mixed in with the normal beans during manufacture." He continued to eat and think, nodding with approval at each bean until he finished the handful. "When I gave Sam that batch, the Botts Bean must have been in it, and unlike regular jellybeans the bushes spread rapidly beyond the confines of his garden while he was away and ultimately took over the Shire. This, my girl, requires a visit to Buckland after all!"
"Gandalf, old friend!!" cried the Doctor, as the ancient wizard drew his horse to a halt. The TARDIS was sitting in the middle of the road to Buckland, blocking his path through the then-verdant hills.
"Hmph!" said Gandalf, pushing back his hat. "Just because we went to Kindergarten in the same year does not mean we are old friends, and I cannot say that I am exactly glad to see you. Nevertheless... Greetings. Now what do you want?"
"Well firstly, I have something of yours-- a shaving kit I got away with during our first Balrog-hunting expedition." The Doctor handed it over with a flourish.
"So that's where it went! I might have known... Ah well, I've grown quite used to having my beard by now."
"Drat. All that effort for nothing. Anyway, secondly, I must ask you a very confidential question."
"Which is?"
The Doctor leaned conspiratorially close against Gandalf's horse, standing on his tiptoes. "Do you still have your ring?"
"The Ring?!"
"Not That ring, you old fuddy-duddy! Your own ring!! The Ring of Fire!"
"Yes, why in Middle-Earth should I not have it?"
"Ah. Good. Yes. Well. That's logical. If I didn't take it, you would have it." Breathing a great sigh of relief, the Doctor slid down the horse's side a bit.
"And you're not going to get it!" snapped Gandalf irritably.
"Very good. Just one more thing, and then we must be going."
"And what is that?"
"I'm going to give Sam some jellybeans in the near future."
Leela stifled laughter at the look which Gandalf gave his classmate.
"No. Really, this is serious! I'm going to give him some jellybeans and I need you to tell him to dig up the brown one and throw it into the fire. Tell him to destroy it, or it will take over all Middle-Earth!"
Now the wizard's face was grim. "You got hold of some Botts by mistake, I take it."
"Just one I think, and I accidentally gave it to Sam."
"Naturally." Gandalf tugged on the reins, bringing his grazing horse to attention. "Very well. If you went yourself you'd likely cause another disaster-- and don't you think I cannot tell that you already have."
"Well-- Just a small glitch--"
"I will go to Hobbiton at once. Are you certain it was a brown bean?"
"Oh, very certain."
"Are you certain it was the only one?"
"Reasonably certain. One bean..."
"All right. Off I go then, and you had better go too, before you muck up anything else. Got that?"
"Right-O. Say, old chap, any chance that you and the rest of the Istari could meet me at the Restaurant At the End of the Universe sometime? Catch up on all the news?"
"If you pay the tab." And Gandalf wheeled his horse toward Hobbiton and galloped off without another word.
When Leela and the Doctor stepped back into the TARDIS, K-9 was waiting for them, tail wagging hopefully. At his "feet" lay a huge old book with intricate designs of burnished gold. Leela picked it up as the Doctor began punching coordinates. "What's this?" She settled herself into the Doctor's easychair.
"Oh, that's another of my favorite books," he replied vaguely. "I had K-9 look it up for you."
Leela slowly opened the cover, smelling the mustiness of the ancient binding. The title page was covered in spidery designs; in large letters were the words:
THE NEVERENDING STORY
She drew a deep breath of anticipation and began to read.
Well folks, this is the last chapter. ^_^ Thanks again for your reviews. This fic will eventually be moved to the Whovian section thanks to the advice of those who answered my Author's Challenge ^_^
LORD OF THE WHO?
Chapter 4: The Jellybeans of Doom
"All right," the Doctor said sternly as the TARDIS fell through the Vortex. "Let's review. Gandalf is imprisoned in the dungeon of Orthanc, not atop the tower as in both primary timestreams. Gwaihir may as well have eaten that moth, for it carried no message, and he is still in his eyrie. Gandalf evidently needs Narya in order for his battle with Saruman to have the proper outcome. Because our good Wizard couldn't get to Rivendell to help Elrond in surgery, Frodo is dead. At the Council, Boromir was appointed the Ring-- politics and all that-- and he has marched to Minas Tirith after tying the rightful King, Aragorn, up in a boat and sending him over the falls. The situation is critical. Got that?"
"Right. So now we give the Ring of Fire back to Gandalf at Orthanc."
"Wrong. You and Galadriel both. We have to go back to the exact point in time when I crash-landed in Buckland, jump-start the TARDIS, and give Gandalf his ring back before taking off again. That will repair everything."
"I think you're the one wrong this time, Doctor."
"What??"
"You have to go back before you crash-landed and fix whatever was wrong with the TARDIS so you don't."
Long silence.
The Doctor sighed heavily. "All right. I suppose we can do this the hard way."
Leela smiled triumphantly. "You, Doctor, are lazy!"
"Well you are illiterate-- no, I can't say that any more, can I...? Right. It's off to the hardware market then."
"Can you reach it from here?"
"Hm. Another good point. Could spend five hundred years trying to hit Betelgeuse from here. We had better send an order instead."
Even sent by GALAXY EXPRESS, the shipment of TARDIS parts took almost two subjective weeks to arrive. While the Doctor spent much of his time with only his feet sticking out from beneath the control console, cursing and getting his scarf stuck in the Time Rotor, Leela plowed her way doggedly through the great red book. The barrier had been broken; she could read, and as she followed the story deep into the Forest of Fangorn and high into the Mountains of Mordor, she became more and more concerned about the Doctor's interference in it. "This is so complicated. Will we ever be able to really set it right?" she asked at the end of the first week.
The Doctor was backing out from under the demolished console, a spanner in one hand, while K-9 dragged his scarf to safety. "This?" he said. "This is nothing. I've mucked up entire universes!"
She put the book aside, marking her place carefully. "Can we watch the Jackson documentary now?"
The Doctor pursed his lips thoughtfully, frowning. "Not yet. But we can watch the out-takes." At Leela's puzzled look he added: "The bits and pieces left out of the finished work."
"Why the out-takes?"
"They're more fun!"
* * *
"Interesting!" said the Doctor as they made their way from the auditorium. "There was no scene of me crashing in Buckland. It was always there before, just after Gandalf falls off his eagle. I always remember my own scenes. But this time there was just the one where I waved while being chased past the camera by those Orcs. That's good. That's very good. It means we've already fixed the problem just as soon as our shipment comes in."
The TARDIS parts came from Betelgeuse Hardware at last, via a smuggler's ship with a fast hyperdrive, and the Doctor immediately got to work.
* * *
"There! All finished," he said, dusting his hands and surveying the newly repaired console with the air of someone who has finally fixed a particularly annoying problem after ignoring it for twenty years. "Leela? Leela! Why ever are you crying?"
She closed the book slowly, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "I've finished," she said simply.
There wasn't anything to say. The Doctor had tea and cookies and offered her some. She refused. He shrugged and dozed off for several hours.
Waking suddenly in the middle of ship's night, the Doctor's first sight was Leela, sound asleep, curled up on the hard floor with her arm over the great red book. The Doctor smiled, got up and retrieved his jacket to lay it over her. Then he made his way to the timeship console. Muttering under his breath, he punched up the Timestream Overview.
"Ah!" he exclaimed in satisfaction as Gandalf strode about restlessly atop the Tower of Orthanc. Moments later, Gwaihir arrived and carried him off. "Yes!"
"Doctor?" said Leela, right by his ear. "What's going on?"
He jumped, then turned to her jubilantly. "Frodo lives!"
And sure enough, there was the little Hobbit, trooping resolutely toward Mordor, followed by Sam who was lugging far too heavy a pack.
"Then that solves everything, Doctor!"
"It appears to," said the Doctor, still watching the scenes flash by. "Very good... Um, Aragorn is still alive, Boromir went over the falls instead, and Shelob's where she should be... King Theoden. Poor chap. Do you know he was a first-class polo player in his youth...?
"I say! Rosie Cotton going out with Ted Sandyman? Wait one minute! Let's slow down here... Oh good gracious me, look at the Shire! It's covered with the oddest bushes... Leela, does the book make any mention of unusual shrubbery appearing in Hobbiton?"
"No. Except for that one Ent in the beginning."
"Neither does Dr. Jackson. We must check this out."
The TARDIS materialized on a hill at the edge of Bywater. When the Doctor emerged, he gaped in horror. The evil-looking bushes covered everything-- the road (now little-used;) the abandoned dwellings, even the shuttered tavern. The only animate things seemed to be a flock of goats on a nearby hillside, and some crows of the Dunland variety which were picking small brownish fruits from the ground.
The Doctor snatched one from a bush. "Hmm. Looks all right. The hue is a bit off. Let me see." And he popped it into his mouth, chewed twice, then froze in horror.
"Doctor!" Leela grabbed his arm. "Doctor??"
He gulped, made a face, and said: "It's a Bertie Botts! These are Botts Bushes-- not regular jellybeans at all! They're pernicious! Oh my! Leela! Do you see any of a different color, or are they all the same?"
"All the same, as far as I can tell."
"That's what I see too." Calming down somewhat, the Doctor put his hand in his pocket and came up with more jellybeans. "Now this one Ought to be licorice, and quite nice too after that cow-muck flavored bean. Yes... Mmmmm! I can only speculate that somehow a single Botts Bean was mixed in with the normal beans during manufacture." He continued to eat and think, nodding with approval at each bean until he finished the handful. "When I gave Sam that batch, the Botts Bean must have been in it, and unlike regular jellybeans the bushes spread rapidly beyond the confines of his garden while he was away and ultimately took over the Shire. This, my girl, requires a visit to Buckland after all!"
"Gandalf, old friend!!" cried the Doctor, as the ancient wizard drew his horse to a halt. The TARDIS was sitting in the middle of the road to Buckland, blocking his path through the then-verdant hills.
"Hmph!" said Gandalf, pushing back his hat. "Just because we went to Kindergarten in the same year does not mean we are old friends, and I cannot say that I am exactly glad to see you. Nevertheless... Greetings. Now what do you want?"
"Well firstly, I have something of yours-- a shaving kit I got away with during our first Balrog-hunting expedition." The Doctor handed it over with a flourish.
"So that's where it went! I might have known... Ah well, I've grown quite used to having my beard by now."
"Drat. All that effort for nothing. Anyway, secondly, I must ask you a very confidential question."
"Which is?"
The Doctor leaned conspiratorially close against Gandalf's horse, standing on his tiptoes. "Do you still have your ring?"
"The Ring?!"
"Not That ring, you old fuddy-duddy! Your own ring!! The Ring of Fire!"
"Yes, why in Middle-Earth should I not have it?"
"Ah. Good. Yes. Well. That's logical. If I didn't take it, you would have it." Breathing a great sigh of relief, the Doctor slid down the horse's side a bit.
"And you're not going to get it!" snapped Gandalf irritably.
"Very good. Just one more thing, and then we must be going."
"And what is that?"
"I'm going to give Sam some jellybeans in the near future."
Leela stifled laughter at the look which Gandalf gave his classmate.
"No. Really, this is serious! I'm going to give him some jellybeans and I need you to tell him to dig up the brown one and throw it into the fire. Tell him to destroy it, or it will take over all Middle-Earth!"
Now the wizard's face was grim. "You got hold of some Botts by mistake, I take it."
"Just one I think, and I accidentally gave it to Sam."
"Naturally." Gandalf tugged on the reins, bringing his grazing horse to attention. "Very well. If you went yourself you'd likely cause another disaster-- and don't you think I cannot tell that you already have."
"Well-- Just a small glitch--"
"I will go to Hobbiton at once. Are you certain it was a brown bean?"
"Oh, very certain."
"Are you certain it was the only one?"
"Reasonably certain. One bean..."
"All right. Off I go then, and you had better go too, before you muck up anything else. Got that?"
"Right-O. Say, old chap, any chance that you and the rest of the Istari could meet me at the Restaurant At the End of the Universe sometime? Catch up on all the news?"
"If you pay the tab." And Gandalf wheeled his horse toward Hobbiton and galloped off without another word.
When Leela and the Doctor stepped back into the TARDIS, K-9 was waiting for them, tail wagging hopefully. At his "feet" lay a huge old book with intricate designs of burnished gold. Leela picked it up as the Doctor began punching coordinates. "What's this?" She settled herself into the Doctor's easychair.
"Oh, that's another of my favorite books," he replied vaguely. "I had K-9 look it up for you."
Leela slowly opened the cover, smelling the mustiness of the ancient binding. The title page was covered in spidery designs; in large letters were the words:
THE NEVERENDING STORY
She drew a deep breath of anticipation and began to read.