Title: Blushing Golden BauBels
Category: TV Shows » Doctor Who
Author: LadyRavena
Language: English, Rating: Rated: K
Genre: Humor/General
Published: 04-26-11, Updated: 04-26-11
Chapters: 1, Words: 6,511

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Blushing Golden Bau-Bels

Characters: Tenth Doctor, Minions

Crossover: Despicable Me/Doctor Who

Rating: G

Categories: Comedy/Introspection

Summary: When the Tardis lands on a barren world with the only a giant mushroom cloud in the distance, the Doctor is unaware that there are now a lot of little yellow stowaways on board. Minor spoilers for Waters of Mars. NOTE: Written BEFORE the Doctor's Wife.

The ground shook beneath the hundreds of little booted feet that were stampeding toward the horizon. It shook not from their footfalls, but from the source of the massive mushroom cloud behind them, the smoke that heralded the advancing windstorm gaining on the little mass of beings. They ran and ran and still could not outrun the storm that would bury them all alive. Never mind the fact that the storm was of their own creation, and that one little dropped bomb could ignite that whole stockpile of bombshells, which in turn ignited the underground train tracks full of little carts piled high with more explosives, which in turn ignited the massive, end-of-the-world, let's take'em with us bomb that was waiting to be completed in the underground laboratory.

Never mind that.

The swarm of little yellow critters was running as fast as their little feet could, all of the their little mouths screaming, all their little gloved hands waving in the air, dust and soot already covering their little overalls and goggles. Some had two eyes behind the plastic eye covers, some had only one, but they all had one thing in common:

They all knew that that couldn't make it.

They all knew that the storm would bury them alive in the debris.

They all knew that the radiation would kill any survivors.

They all knew that this was IT.

They all knew that there was now a blue box in front of them with a wide open door and light spilling out of it that hadn't been there before.

So the little swarm ran and ran into the little blue box and the last of the little yellow beings almost got caught as the doors slammed closed against the wind and the storm and the radiation and the death that had been waiting for them, all due to one little mug on the floor that one little minion had tripped over while carrying one too many little bombs.

She had always enjoyed the company her Doctor brought on board during his travels. Alright, there had been a few that had she a corporeal body she would have raised an eyebrow at, but eventually she warmed to all of his companions. She knew that he needed more company than she could possibly be. Her Doctor needed that hand to hold, to run alongside with, and to pull into the next set of dangers that only she could find for him.

Sometimes, when he was starting to get a little too full of himself and his power over time and space, she would scan the Vortex, find one particularly hard challenge that needed solving, and throw him into it. Never something that she believed that he couldn't escape, and never something that nearly guaranteed his death or regeneration, but something that would quietly make him think and ponder a bit when it was all over, feet up on the console, staring into middle distance, trying not to see Time itself.

And sometimes, when he was hell-bent on causing mischief, she would find as peaceful a world as she possibly could and leave him there, refusing to let him inside until he settled down, until she could scan his mind, and his emotions, and not find at the forefront, 'Bring it on - I just don't care anymore.' After Rose had left, he'd been like that; it was before he'd found, with her help, the one last gap in the universe, enough to burn out a star to send one last message, one last good bye.

She'd have given half of her energy cells that day to be able to hold him as the sun gave out just on those last few words.

She was worried for her Time Lord now. Donna's loss was slowly eating at him, taking him apart, and he didn't even realize it at times. He still bounced from one disaster to another, and still insisted on trying to save everyone he could.

Because he was the Doctor.

Because he was the Last of the Time Lords, and could jump through Time and Space and save whole worlds. Because he was the Oncoming Storm and whole armies had and will turn from him in fear and doubt. Because after over eight hundred years of constant travel, he knew things and places that no other being could possibility know, and that made him a power to be trifled with only after serious, soul-searching contemplation.

Because one temp from Chiswick had demanded, on their very first trip into Earth's past, that he just save someone.

And because, as she was his TARDIS, she would do everything she could for him, look after him, try to reason with him and take him where he needed to be, and save those that needed to be saved…

…even little yellow minions who ought to know better than to carry twenty little bombs at a time, whistling, through the lunch room.

"Ooooooooooooh!"

The little yellow swarm was running around and around the consol in the center of the TARDIS, completely impressed with the massive room inside the little blue box that had just saved them. They weren't quite ready to start pushing the buttons, with the strange writing on them, just yet; they still found the whole room too much fun to play in. The spires that reached up to the ceiling drew a few to start climbing them. The ramps and central stairwell was even more fun, as a mini-swarm of them disappeared into parts unknown.

The Doctor slowly made his way back into the main control room, idly turning the coil assembly over in his hand. It had been a long day of repairs and re-repairs, and he wasn't sure that he was all that with it anymore. It had been ages since he'd slept properly, and he knew his reflexes weren't quite up to snuff.

Ever since Mars he hadn't slept worth anything. All he could hear when he settled down, whether it was in the control room, in the library or in his own bed, was the arrogance of those words he'd spoken to Adelaide: For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner! That's who I am: the Time Lord Victorious! All he could see was the high-handed hauteur of a being who fickly decides who was important, and who wasn't, and that he could change the course of history and time and space on his whim.

Standing in the Tardis, hearing the cloister bells chime his impending doom, he'd realized just how far he'd slipped down a path he didn't want to think about; he didn't want to imagine becoming another Time Lord with delusions of godhood.

He didn't want to imagine becoming the Master.

If Adelaide hadn't done what she had, hadn't had the courage and the bravery and the honour and the love of her planet and people to fix that impending paradox, he would have succumb to the power and the might and the siren song of madness that had destroyed his people in the first place. He would have become another Rassilon in the end. Another despot that needed to be stopped… but there was no Doctor out there to stop him.

So he flew from the Ood, from the cloister bells, from the faint telepathic call that made his hand falter on the controls when he wasn't paying full attention. He flew and flew and ran and laughed and got into light mischief and planet ending wars and tried very hard not to sleep.

So, perhaps that was the reason that it had taken him almost forty five minutes to find the storage room that held completely fixed and rebuilt coils. Perhaps the Tardis was trying to tell him to rest. She had placed his room in his path four times on the way there, and three times on the way back to the control room after all, he mused, dropping down beside a large bin that sat beneath the monitor.

One little yellow hand reached out and started to feel along the grating, as the distracted Time Lord rummaged in the large bin of spare nuts, bolts, nails, paper clips and bull clips that he used to keep the main console in one piece. Jack had teased him about using duct tape and bailing wire to keep the old girl running, and in point of fact, well, there were two spools at the bottom of the bin of bailing wire. The hand reached over the dead parts, and the burn-out spark plug to the long silver instrument that whistled and lit up at one end and made things work. Little yellow fingers trapped in little black gloves wrapped around the screwdriver and pulled it under the grating, and the "oooh!" was covered over by the Doctor's "Ah-ha!" of triumph at the small bottle of Krazy glue needed to finish the last of the repairs.

The repairs on that part of the coil assembly were done, at the cost of a burnt tie where a shower of sparks had caught the silk accessory and smouldered for several minutes unbeknownst to him. It was an interesting pattern, the Doctor thought to himself, looking at it from several angles. Now, if burnt ties were ever in the same league as tea leaf reading, (something he'd had done several times, most of the time having them tell him that he'd meet a tall dark soggy stranger who would drip all over his clean suit), the patterns in the scorched fabric would, no doubt, herald his imminent death by a silk worm hoard.

So, now he was wandering up to the wardrobe, absently patting his pockets for his screwdriver. Maybe he'd left it in the storage area, after his search for the coil parts…

"What?"

A line of bright apple green paint ran the entire length of the corridor, over several doors, and into the wardrobe. Backtracking it to the second last door in the corridor, the Doctor found a mural dedicated to kittens, pyramids, and what looked like pink unicorns. "What? Why are you redecorating like a hyperactive four year old, eh, old girl?" he asked softly, reaching out one hand to stroke the walls.

The Tardis shivered under his touch, laughing to herself.

Sighing, he stood back up and followed the fading green line into the wardrobe, shaking his head. At least it was better than the leopard skin motif that she had tried to do him way back in his fifth regeneration… and once, Jack had almost convinced her to change into it with Rose on board. He still had nightmares about Jack and him in a wild cat print bedroom, and Jack having the only set of keys to get out of it.

The paint brush lay on the floor just inside the wardrobe's entrance, having obviously run out of paint in its bristles. Stepping over it, the Doctor felt his gaze travel upwards into the multi-level room, jaw dropping at the mass of confusion that met his eyes.

In one corner, a large square-motif quilt had been laid out, with about 20 mittens and gloves all over it in a random pattern. Taking a second look, he realized that they were only on half the squares, and that there was only red and green hand wear; it took a quick count and three new angles of view before he clued in to the fact that it was a checkers game in progress. Something had taken every scarf he'd ever worn out of the boxes they lived in and woven them into a round hammock, swinging between two support struts, where several of his most fluffy sweaters were bundled together to make pillows. The shoe trees were completely out of order, with all the left on one tree and the right on another, arranged by colour repeats of the rainbow, with all the non-rainbow colours piled up under the sixth Doctor's coat.

Socks had been wrapped together somehow, he saw as he walked up to the second level of the wardrobe, and made into garland that hung off the handrails in loops like Christmas decorations. His extra ties, both long and bow, had been tied to several twisted hangers hung from the grating of the third floor and left dangling like bead curtains, making him part the layers of silk to enter the landing area for the second floor… to be met with several oddly dressed manikins ready for lunch, judging by the empty tea service on the overturned suitcase turned table top.

The manikins, though, nearly had him laughing out loud, and had he known who or what it was that was doing this, he would have at least been smiling. One was very prim and proper in its green dinner jacket, pink frilled shirt, yellow tie, black polka dot pants, galoshes that came to the knees, and suspenders with Mickey Mouse fasteners. Another, seated some ways back from the first, wore a 'I Love New15 York" t-shirt under a truly hideous spiked jean jacket that he didn't remember ever wearing, fluffy bunny ears that were trying to light up around the head band, track pants that had faded lines running horizontally around the cuffs and pink pockets, and a pair of faded blue converse sneakers that were missing a toe. Another manikin had a mix of ballet tights, 1980's rocker hair wig, and half of a costume from a Disney princess musical. The last one, tucked away in the back of the room, little used by himself (as it was a woman's manikin…womakin?...) really had him baffled.

It was perfectly orderly, co-ordinated, and quite stunning.

The golden blond curled wig was just arranged into the proper waves and up do that a duchess of Great Britain might wear to court, with a peacock feather placed in the back of the headpiece, arching up to nearly eight and a half feet. The jewels that had been woven in matched the necklace that graced the bosom of the figure, as did the earrings and rings on the finely sculpted hands. The dress, fine embroidery done and laces perfect, laid over the corsets and rigging beneath, and flared out onto the silk table cloth of green that had been laid out beneath it, as if the figure had been on grass the moment before, and wished to keep the look. Even the feet had been caught in the heels that went with the dress, and the high stockings no doubt had the perfect shade of pink garter ties to match them.

"The Duchess Georgiana Spencer of Devonshire, anyone?" the Doctor murmured, stepping back and admiring the work. He was oddly reluctant to leave the display, and quenched the urge to bow to the inanimate collection, but he wanted that new tie. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and walked out of the wardrobe toward his own bedroom. He might, might have left one in there that he could wear.

Once he found his own room, which admittedly was a room the Doctor rarely went into these days, he slipped inside, debating on whether or not to try and take at least a short nap. The Tardis had the lights just as dim as he liked them to sleep, still enough light to see by when he inevitably awoke from a nightmare. She was even playing something soft and slow, a piano solo from an old Earth composer which evoked images of a dancing beagle and children skating across a frozen lake… peaceful, soothing … he found himself wandering closer to the bed, eyelids heavy.

"That's cheating, you know," he mumbled, dropping onto the edge of the bed, eyeing the pillows distrustfully. "You look all nice and comfy womfy, but I know I'm not going to get any – any-" a huge yawn cracked his jaw in the midst of that sentence, and he shook his head to clear it. "—any nice, peaceful… non-boot printed dreams, hang on." He stood up as the lights dimmed a bit more, trying to obscure the thing that had caught his attention.

"No, turn them back up." The Tardis seemed to sigh, and then slowly raised the lights to the regular level. There, deeply imprinted on the bedcovers, were several pairs of boot prints, as if something, or something-s had been jumping on the bed.

"Cup of Tea, that's what I need. Nice cup of free radicals and super heated tannins, just the thing for an overworked brain." The Doctor slowly made his way through the halls of the TARDIS, hands patting his pockets absently. The screwdriver's weight was missing from his pockets, and he couldn't for the hair on his head remember where he had put it down last. The plasma coils that he had been fixing were proving to be quite the hassle this time around. Personally, he was beginning to wonder if the Tardis didn't want him to fix them. They kept hiding behind half the coolant lines, and he was quite sure that the tool box kept moving an inch or so away every time he was underneath the grating.

"Nice cup of tea, couple of sugars, make it that little extra sweet, although honey would be nice. Don't think that there is any, though, keep forgetting to pick some up, never can quite keep the whole list in my head, suppose I could keep a running list, but that would be a long one, what with all the different teas, types of sugar, honeys, tea biscuits, those little sandwiches that the British so love to put with tea. What is the attraction to have cucumber with bread and tea, it's not like the things even come from the same area or plant family? I wonder who came up with the idea of – what?"

Standing in front of him, from floor to ceiling, was the Eiffel Tower in miniature.

"What?"

Standing in front of him, from floor to ceiling, was the Eiffel Tower in miniature, made from mugs, saucers, spoons, knives and forks.

"What?"

An Eiffel Tower with an egg whisk as the topper, and dusted with icing sugar to match the marshmallow snow men scattered at the base. Obviously it was winter scene, he mused, pulling on his specs, crouching down to take a closer look at this monument. A winter scene, including a little tourist house made from gingerbread and candies behind the base, with his collection of mini-teacups and saucers serving as an impromptu outdoor café.

"What?"

"What is going on, old girl?" the Doctor murmured, wandering into the Tardis's main room a few minutes later with a mug of tea. Okay, it was one of Donna's old mugs, and was covered in frolicking squirrels in bonnets, but it was a mug that wasn't super-glued into a wonder of the modern world.

He walked past his coat that hung over the usual strut, completely failing to see the little yellow head that poked out of the folds, snoring slightly. The Tardis shook a little, and one fold of the coat fell over the head, tucking in the little sleeping creature from the Doctor's vision.

Running one hand along the controls, he sighed. "I found an Eiffel Tower in the kitchen, a towel origami Statue of Liberty in the main bath, something clipped the thyme bushes into the Great Wall of China, and there is glitter all over the library from the M's to the Q's." He drew in a deep breath, and took a long sip of tea and failed to feel the soothing effects of the tea as normal. If anything, he was feeling all the more jittery.

"How much sugar did I put in here?" he wondered, giving the mug contents a good swirl before putting it down on the jump seat. He walked over to the controls, wandering around once, checking this and that, and came back around to the jump seat. Idly, he reached for the tea mug, only to find that it was already finished. "Bit more than I thought, I guess."

It wasn't long before he needed another set of parts from the storage areas of the Tardis, and the Doctor wasn't quite looking forward to what he would find. The last time he'd been in there he'd been at least three times as long as he needed to be, and he could have sworn that something was laughing at him when he couldn't find the parts he needed and complained to the Tardis that this wasn't the time for hide and seek.

So, it wasn't a great surprise when he walked into one of his favourite workrooms and found things not as he had left them.

"Wha—where … where did everything go?" the Doctor said, spluttering and walking into the room, dazed at the shiny counter-tops. The glare off the floor was blinding him, and the labels on all the cabinets in some strange, non-Earth writing was crisp and orderly. The entire room was clean, tidy, the whole 'everything had a place and everything in its place' routine. It hadn't been that clean in all the years since he'd borrowed the Tardis from the yards.

It took him several decades' worth of fine Gallifreyan curses and two hours twenty to find the coupling part that he knew had been on the work bench waiting to be installed the last time he'd been working here. And there was still no sign of his screwdriver.

"Fine!" the Doctor muttered under his breath, stalking into one of the many pantries on his ship. "Be that way; don't tell me what's going on."

The Tardis sighed in his mind, but refused to elaborate on her good mood.

Rummaging around the fruit bowls, the Doctor came out with a medium sized bushel of bananas. "I'll have to give your controls a good whack with the rubber mallet, you know that, old girl? I need to figure out what has infested you." He idly began ennie-mennie'ing the bananas as he walked back through the corridors to the main room, trying to pick which one to inhale first.

Infesting?

"Yes, infesting. Things are going missing, moving around by themselves, eating my favourite foods, and aren't you lucky they haven't found that room, with all the apples and fruit I could possibly eat in this body."

Hardly enough.

"Oi! I'll have you know this body takes a lot more calories to keep going, and that it needs lot of fresh, yummy fruit, than the last few did. I mean, really," he said, walking past another of the lounge doors that was almost closed, "there were bodies that could only eat half a dozen bananas, and then, poof, all full, not even any room for chips or fine chocolate, or that absolutely divine brownie that Jackie had once when I – wait, what?"

A little voice had echoed the word, "Banana?"

The little voice was from the lounge with the mostly closed door. The should-be-empty lounge with no lights on and no sign of being used in the last little while. The little voice had come from there, and it seemed that there was a little darker shadow amongst the darkness. Inching closer to the room, conscious again of his missing screwdriver, the Doctor reached out and slowly opened the door wide into the hallway.

No movement. No little voices, not a speck of dust floating by. Even the TARDIS hum was quieter, her presence muted in his mind.

And then the little voice came again. "Banana?"

Okay, the Doctor thought to himself, you've never been attacked by anything that has liked bananas. Unless, in its language, that means 'die a horrible death', but I doubt it, and still, that would be one giant, hilarious mix up of the translation circuits. Slowly, he reached out one hand and felt along the wall for the slide switch, sliding it slowly to half brightness.

Over a hundred little yellow creatures, all with goggles and overalls and big eyes, stared at him for a few nanoseconds, before one in the middle of the swarm, group, pack, whatever they were called, pointed at him and yelled at the top of its little voice, "BANANA!"

As one little mass of yellow, they began to run toward him, their little feet shaking the grating so much that the Doctor could almost feel his teeth rattling in his head. He froze for one half second, wondering blindly what would stop this many little beings from swarming him, when the Tardis took control.

Give them the bananas! Just throw them!

He obeyed without question, and slammed the door shut with a deafening bang. Even with the door closed, and his body leaning against it, he could still hear, in little tiny voices muffled by the wooded door, "Banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana," chanting away.

"What?"

I saved them.

"What?"

They were about to be blown up, so I saved them.

"What? Wait, hang on, you did this while I was working on the coils! When you landed on that little dusty planet with the great, big mushroom cloud, and refused to move! You – you!" he sputtered.

I broke the coils. I needed you to go get new ones from the storage area. I wanted to save them.

"You hid that storage room from me for over half an hour!"

I needed time. They have short little legs.

The Doctor sputtered a few more times, before sighing, and banging his head against the wall. He pulled a dusty red apple out of his pocket and started to shine it against his labels. "You could have told me that they were in danger, you know. I would have tried to help."

The Tardis didn't reply at first, and then she almost whispered in his mind, I wasn't sure you would.

The Doctor froze, eyes wide, staring sightlessly up at the ceiling. Even the Tardis wasn't sure about him anymore…. "I would have tried to help," he whispered, swallowing hard. "I … I know I would have."

I wanted to save them. They are such funny little creatures, and we were flying past them, and I thought I could save them and I did. That's why we go all around the universe, in Time and Space, to save things, don't we? And, I meant to tell you as soon as I got them all on, but they were so cute, and funny to watch, and they didn't go near the console, and … They must be a bit hungrier than I thought, after all that running for their lives, though. He likes you.

"Wait, what?" the Doctor spluttered, thrown by the sudden change in topic. The Tardis changed topic like he flew the Tardis.

The little one beside you.

Sure enough, there, standing on his coat tails, was a little yellow critter, one eye starring at him from behind his goggles. Little tufted hair sticking straight up, blue overalls with some company logo that he didn't recognize (thanking his lucky stars that it didn't read Bad Wolf, he didn't think he could handle that, thank you very much!) it had to be said that the thing was cute.

And hungry. "Bau-bel?" it said in a tiny voice, soft and shy.

"Bau-bel?" the Doctor repeated blankly, until he noticed what it was looking and, now, pointing at. "Oh, you want the apple, do you? Well, why not, your little buddies already took ten years off my life and my bushel of bananas." Sourly, he passed over the now-shined apple.

"Bau-bel!" Crunching the apple, taking rather a larger bite than the Doctor thought possible, the critter plunked himself down beside the Doctor happily.

The grove was the same as it had been the last time he'd been there. Much better, he had to admit, than the weapons factory that was long destroyed and planted over. Miles and miles of banana trees, a sea of yellow that never ended. The climate had been just right, the air, the moisture, all of it was perfect for one of the best foods that any of his regenerations had ever eaten.

Now, he had landed just at the start of one of the many paths that led into the grove, and he was methodically moving his vast collection of storage trunks into a long path that led from the lounge door to the big blue outside doors that stood open to the bait to lure out the hundreds of little pests. Oh, he had to agree with his ship; now that he knew what was going on, and that he wasn't losing his mind, their antics were quite amusing, and the stuff that the little yellow things got into was mind-boggling. But that was the whole problem – they simply got into everything, and would, one day very soon, start pressing buttons that they weren't supposed to. With his luck, he'd end up in front of a Dalek fleet with no ship, no escape, and only his sonic screwdriver to help him out of the jam they would innocently drop him into. Giving his pockets one more absent-minded pat, he revised that statement. Nothing but his wits, as he had a sneaking suspicion that the little monsters had found his screwdriver, and taken off with it.

With that thought in mind, he pushed the last of the trunks in place, panting from the effort. The 'B' trunk was always the heaviest, what with all the random books, bobbins, bombs, balls, and ballistics (that he swore to never let Jack anywhere near—the 51st century Time Agent had way too much fun blowing things up for his liking) stuffed inside. He probably should get around to a good old fashioned spring cleaning, but it was always sunny or snowing somewhere, and he just never really got in the mood for it.

"Alright," he said, throwing open the door to the grove outside. "Let's get this done, preferably before they start breeding or splitting or morphing or whatever they do to increase their little numbers." Clambering over the trunks, thankful that he wasn't in one of his earlier regenerations with shorter legs, he leaned on the railway to the front doors, beside the little trunk pathway and pulled on the long ball of twine attached to the door of the lounge.

It swung slowly open, the room still pitch black inside. The Doctor wondered idly if the little things preferred it dark, were sleeping, or simply couldn't reach the light switch. "Oi!" he shouted. "You lot! There's an entire banana grove out here waiting for you! Come and get it!"

Eyes appeared in the darkness, the glow from the rotator sparking off the goggles. "Banana?"

"Yes, Banana! Bananas as far as your little eyes can see, and as much as you all can eat, which is quite amazing, considering you're all under 3 feet tall-"

"Banana?" One stepped outside the lounge, and stared at him.

The Doctor pointed out the door. "Bananas!"

The little critter stood on tiptoe and looked way down the ramp and out the door. A huge grin spread over its little face, and it turned back to the room, pointing to the open door. "BANANA-LAN!" it screamed, and started running. It got about three feet before the grating under the Doctor's feet began to shake, and the entire mass of yellow and black goggled and blue overall critters ran down the corridor, around the console, and down the ramp. They ran, all chanting completely out of sync, "Banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana, banana," for several minutes. Finally, the last few little chubby ones came out of the room, pulling on the tail of a very familiar multicolour scarf.

"Oi, no, I keep that. Besides which, it is way too big for – oh, you didn't," he moaned, as the end of the seventeen foot long scarf came rolling out, wrapped around one poor little struggling critter. "Now, that wasn't very nice of you two," he scolded, climbing over and up the ramp. Bending down, he pulled the little thing out of the scarf, and set him down carefully. "Off you run," he said, patting it on the head. "And you two!" he turned around and watched as they both gulped and ran down the ramp at full speed.

"Is that it?" he asked of the Tardis.

She was silent, only a gentle, contented hum running through his bones. "Alright then," he said, closing the doors and walking back up the ramp, tossing the long scarf over one of the corals on the way. "Next stop, then? That is, if you're done just about with bringing little monster pests into yourself, and driving me up the walls with the antics of said pests? Speaking of, we need to hit another banana grove or a market, I am absolutely starved! And I need to make up a new sonic, before we go too much farther, as I am pretty sure that your little friends-"

"Bau-bel?"

The Doctor twitched, whirled, and saw one little minion sitting on the jump seat, swinging its legs idly. "What? Oh, wait, hold on, I think I met you before, didn't I?"

"Yepper."

The Doctor shook his head, steadfastly ignoring the laughing in his head from his Tardis. "I really am very sorry, but I have no plans for a whole host of little critters running around my ship, and it really isn't all that safe anyway, now that I think about it; besides which, all your little friends are out there and having a ball demolishing a banana grove, don't you want to play too?"

"Bau-bel?"

The Doctor hung his head, exasperated. The only one who seemed to not go nuts for bananas... "Bananas are good, you know. Quite fond of them myself, when there are any around, of course." He walked around the console, stepped over the 'Q' trunk (quests, quasars, quirky quotes, curly cues, etc), and pulled out a basket full of apples with a neat little bow on top, one apple type for each letter of the Roman alphabet. He'd had fun taking them out of deep storage, some of which had been in there since his fourth or third regeneration. There was Autumn Pearmain, Bonza, Calville Blanc, Duchess, Early harvest, Fall Pippin, Galaxy Gala, Hoople's Antique Gold, Idaho Spur (he wanted to go to Idaho one day), Jacob's Strawberry, Knobbed Russett, Lindamac, Maiden's Blush, Northern Lights, Ontario, Parkland, Quebec Bell, Redmac McIntosh, Spur Winter Banana, Thome Empire, Ultrared Gala, Virginia Greening, Waltz, Xavier De Bavay, Yellow Newton and last but not least, Zuccalmaglio's Reinette. (Just for the name he'd brought some on board; never had them, though.) They were all mixed together to create a homage that any Apple Pie chef would drool over. He'd figured he'd need the basket of apples to get this one out. The Tardis had presented the decorated basket to him in the kitchen, conveniently dropping it on his head from an overhead shelf. "But apparently, you like Bau-bels better."

He stepped back over the trunks and swung the outside doors open. "One Bau-bel basket served!" he said and placed it just outside the doors on the beaten path.

The little critter hopped down and trundled out of the ship, swiping the top apple (Parkland) immediately and taking at least half of it in one bite.

"Good bye, little critters!" the Doctor said softly, and started to swing the doors closed.

"Who-sa?"

"What now?" the Doctor moaned, looking down at the apple loving critter that was tugging on his pant leg. "What? That's the last of the apples in the ship; you ate the rest of them."

"Yeah, hao we do?"

"Quite well for a little yellow trash compact…" the Doctor's voice faded as the little yellow, one eyed monster held up his sonic screwdriver. "Thank you," he said softly, reaching down and taking it from his little yellow friend.

"Bau-bel!" the critter exclaimed, and trundled back out of the ship, grabbed his basket, and devoured the second half of the first apple. The basket was nearly as big as he was, but it was all his, and he was proud of it, too.

The Doctor sighed, a soft smile on his face as he replaced the sonic in its usual spot in his coat pocket, and closed the doors softly on the field of yellow bananas and yellow critters that were climbing all over the trees to get to them, all chanting, "Banana!"

AN: This has been reposted to deal with several anonymous reviews that I've received and (for some) deleted, telling me how wrong I am about how the Tardis communicates with the Doctor. If they had bothered to note the posting date, this was originally written several months before the episode "The Doctor's Wife" and as such, we did not have a clear picture of her level of linkage with the Doctor. I'm sorry, but that is the way of it. If you don't like it, please don't bother to review.

That out of the way, thank you to:

b3cks, Cylon One, Gekko Feet, Invader Kett, mgunh1, Movie-Brat, ninjapen141, Prats 'R' Us, The Lady Loin, Velvetpelt, xXxLuna-the-ChosenxXx for the favorites and to everyone who reviewed positively, especially wishyfishy. Thank you. *hugs*