Entry tags:

story: tardis

Title: I Want My MTV (3/6)
Rating: PG (bit o' swearing)
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything through New Who S3/Torchwood S2 is fair game.
Summary: Young Stephen is surprised that Jack didn't leave him; adult Stephen is surprised that young(er) Jon made him leave; and Jon is surprised by Stephen in general (as is the alien with the laser).

Pretty much all my knowledge of the Jon Stewart Show comes from the fabulous JSS Ultimate Guide.

(By the way: three cheers for President-elect Arthur Winters! Too bad Harry Saxon's gonna be shooting him in a month or two...)

Beta by the beatific stellar_dust. Table of contents, and footnotes, here.


I Want My MTV
Part Three


Another Damn Planet: 7032

Stephen sank back onto his rock, looking at Jack in awe.

He had stayed.

The Doctor had asked him to go somewhere, and had stayed. With Stephen.

For his own part, Jack seemed lost in thought. It was a few moments before he noticed Stephen at all; when he realized he was being stared at, he did a double-take. "You okay?"

"Fine!" insisted Stephen, shaking himself. "Fine. Never better!"

The sun climbed higher in the sky.


⇔

Earth: 1994.

Stephen followed the Doctor and Sarah Jane up the fire escape, not really looking at them.

Jon had thrown him out.

He had yelled at Jon, the way he always did, and Jon had thrown him out. Sure, the Jon in this year had never met Stephen before, but still.

It's his own fault, Stephen told himself. He had the nerve to suggest that I was a 'fan' of his. He should have known better.

The sun sank below the horizon.


⇔

Another Damn Planet: 7032

Privately, Jack was as surprised with himself as Stephen was. If you had told him a few months ago that he would ever refuse to follow the Doctor somewhere, he would have laughed in your face.

Stephen kicked his heels against the side of the rock. A few flakes of shale chipped off and clattered to the ground.

"Is this place really called 'another damn planet'?" he asked after a bit.

"Yeah. Grade school kids love learning about it because it gives them an excuse to swear, and their teachers can't tell them off. Not that I speak from experience or anything."

"How come? How did it get that name, I mean?"

"I think the species that found it was really sick of discovering planets."

"How can you get bored with discovering planets? It's cooler than—than—than Tolkien!"

Jack looked around. "I'm pretty sure Tolkien wrote about a lot of places that were more interesting than this particular planet."

Stephen sighed. "Okay, yeah. Unless those are really cool caves."

They sat in silence for a time.

"So what's Ianto's job at Torchwood?" asked Stephen a little later.

"He's our general support officer."

"What does that mean?"

"He makes coffee."

"Oh."

The silence resumed.


⇔

Earth: 1994.

A call from production interrupted the post-show meeting. Elyse took it, leaving Jon's mind free to wander.

Jon understood enthusiastic fans. He had even more of them since moving to syndication, and he couldn't imagine ever getting tired of them. He understood hecklers: he'd had his share of those too. And of course he understood break-ins. He lived in New York.

But why would someone break into a studio and only steal coffee? Not because he was looking to yell at the host. He had recognized Jon, but the outburst had seemed like an afterthought.

("What'd they delete?" Elyse was asking on the phone. "'Hand' or 'job'?")

He'd been way too unprofessional to be a higher-up, suit or no suit—but did he know Jon from somewhere else? That would be a jackass move, running into a guy you'd met at a party or whatever and asking if he was 'a fan.'

Jon racked his brain, to no avail. If they had met, he had been in one of those states of mind where you say a lot, remember none of it, and wake up in the next state wearing somebody else's pants.

"We're taking 'hand' out," announced Elyse, hanging up.

Eh. Might as well forget about it and move on to the important things in life.

"What was her reason?" asked Jon. "Was it the hand movement?"

Besides, he'd probably never see the guy again.


⇔

The spaceship was about the size of a compact house, its outer shell reddish and patterned like the brick of the building on which it sat. "Primitive chameleon technology," observed the Doctor as he walked around it, wielding his sonic screwdriver like a dowsing rod. "Ah! Here's the door."

"How can you tell?" asked Sarah Jane, a few steps behind. "Did you use some kind of ultrasonic signal that changed in pitch when you passed over an entrance?"

"No, just found the knob."

"Oh."

As the Doctor tucked his improvised scanner under one arm (its little spinning wheel clicking loudly in futile protest) to aim the screwdriver with both hands, Sarah Jane glanced back at Stephen. He hadn't said a word of complaint during the whole climb, which was a pretty fair indicator that something was wrong.

To her relief, he wasn't staring up at the nearly-full moon. To her dismay, he was instead standing by the edge of the roof, looking over. She stepped over to his side.

"Come on, Stephen," she urged, touching his sleeve. "We've got work to do."

Stephen jumped. "I'm not waiting for Jon to come out!" he exclaimed.

"I'm sure. Look, the Doctor's got the door open. Let's go save some aliens, okay?"


⇔

Another Damn Planet: 7032

"This would be a good time for a surprise alien attack," said Stephen out loud.

He looked around expectantly.

Nothing happened.


⇔

Earth: 1994.

"I really wasn't watching for Jon," insisted Stephen as they walked through the narrow halls of the spaceship.

"Of course you weren't," said the Doctor.

"He probably won't leave for a while anyway. He'll spend a couple more hours working with the writers. That's the kind of person Jon is. He doesn't understand how to speak from the gut."

For some reason it seemed very important that the Doctor and Sarah Jane not get the wrong idea about Jon. They had only seen him for a few minutes! What right did they have to judge?

"And he might not leave through the main door. He might sneak out the back somewhere. He does that sometimes, because fans wait around hoping to meet him after tapings, and he's a liberal elitist who thinks he's too good for them."

Okay, that didn't sound good. Think, Col-bert. You put up with the man for a reason.

"But he can be nice when you get to know him," he continued. "If you can get him to admit he's wrong, he apologizes. And he always drops everything when I tell him there's an emergency, even when I'm just testing to make sure he's still there. And, well, it was inevitable that I would get a show someday, but he sorta kinda maybe in a teeny tiny way helped me along."

"Stop!"

"I will not stop!" snapped Stephen. "People should know the truth about Jon. He deserves it. And don't you point that thing at me!" He grabbed the laser pistol from the alien's scaly claws, tossed it aside. "Didn't anyone ever tell you not to point a weapon when someone's talking?"

The others gaped at him. "I don't believe it," breathed the Doctor.

"I know!" huffed Stephen. "The nerve of some people!"


⇔

Another Damn Planet: 7032

"Jack? How do you think the Doctor's doing?"

"Oh, he's probably fine."

"I'm not so sure. He might be in real trouble. He might have . . . fallen and broken his leg, or something."

Jack started to catch on. "Maybe you're right. Do you think we should go and check on him?"

Stephen jumped eagerly to his feet. "I think it's a moral obligation."


⇔

Earth: 1994.

They stood, facing off, in the rather grubby hallway: Stephen, Sarah Jane, and the Doctor in front of the suddenly-disarmed and very surprised-looking bald green alien.

"Dude, you're not a cop, are you?" said the alien, staring at Stephen with huge black eyes. "Because we totally did not mean to land on an F-class planet. We were driving along, minding our own business, when our generator just went foom. Could you, like, find it in your hearts to let us off with a warning?"

"'F-class'?" repeated Stephen incredulously. "How dare your society give my planet an F? Where do you get the balls? Or whatever it is your species has instead of balls."

"Wait—you're natives?" exclaimed the alien. "Radical! We, like, come in peace."

"Yes, thank you, that's lovely," interrupted the Doctor. "But this planet isn't due to make first contact for a few decades yet, so I'm afraid you'll have to leave as soon as we fix your ship."

"Uh, that might be a little tricky. Hey, are you a cop?"

"No, I'm the Doctor. And a part-time mechanic. Why would it be tricky?"

"Well, see," said the alien, shuffling a little, "the other guys, they got hungry, you know? So they went off to find some munchies, sample the local cuisine and all, and maybe kinda sorta blow a couple of things up on the way. Just for kicks!"