Entry tags:

story: tardis

Title: The Eagle Has Landed (4/5)
Rating: PG
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything DW/TW/SJA is fair game.
Summary: Four and Sarah Jane have the crisis mostly in hand, but they're too late for Jon. It's Stephen to the rescue—but will his help be appreciated? Also, young Stephen's mysterious benefactor sure seems to know a lot about him . . .

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


The Eagle Has Landed
Part Four


New York.

Dazed-looking staff members were trickling out the front of the building when Stephen finally stalked up. Ignoring the surprised looks, as well as a few cheers from the lined-up audience members, he shoved past them and into the building.

He found the Doctor first, addressing a couple of woozy crew members who seemed to have laid down in the middle of the floor. "Pest control. For your own health and safety, please file out of the building in an orderly fashion."

"What happened?" demanded Stephen, running over to him. "Is everyone all right?"

"They will be," the Doctor assured him. "Some of them are waking up faster than others. We just need to get them out in the fresh air as soon as they can walk. You did put on the counteracting agent, didn't you? The poor hive mother really gassed up the place."

"Yes, I'm wearing the stupid lipstick. Where's—"

He was cut off when Sarah Jane entered from the far door, a writer leaning unsteadily on one shoulder, a covered bucket slung over the other. "Almost there," she encouraged. "Just a few more steps. Hello, Stephen."

Stephen didn't bother with pleasantries. "Jon hasn't come outside yet. Where is he?"

The other two exchanged a look that he didn't like in the least.


⇔

Jon's body lay on the couch in his office, eyes closed, unmoving.

This was no cocky younger version of the man, either. This was the present-day model, with grey in his hair and lines around his eyes and that bit of a tummy that he always tried to hide. This was the Jon who had known Stephen for years, who probably knew him better than anyone else on the planet.

Stephen clenched his hands into fists to keep them from trembling.

"It looks like he got a bigger dose than everyone else," explained the Doctor quietly. "The airborne antidote hasn't kicked in. He'll need something stronger. I don't suppose you brought the solid stuff with you?"

"What, you think I'd carry makeup around? It's bad enough that I'm wearing it!"

"Ah. Then I suppose you'll want to do the honors."

Stephen frowned. "What are you talking about?"

At this, Sarah Jane laughed outright. "Oh, Stephen, he needs a direct application of the stuff that's on all of our lips. Think about it for a minute! Come on, Doctor. Let's give them some privacy."

With that she half-led, half-dragged the Doctor out of the office, closing the door behind them.


⇔

Montana.

Once he had satisfied Mr. Stewart that his frozen limbs had regained enough dexterity for him to dress himself, Stephen was allowed to trade the blankets for a pair of oversized flannel pajamas, along with a thick knit sweater, hat, and socks. Thus attired, he sat down for dinner.

The rabbit stew was surprisingly delicious. Stephen put away most of the bowl before responding to Mr. Stewart's earlier accusation. "I'm not running away."

The man didn't miss a beat. "If you had somewhere to go," he pointed out gently, "you wouldn't be outside alone in the middle of a blizzard."

"I do have somewhere to go!" protested Stephen. "I just don't want to go there. That's all."

"Does it really count, then?"

"Of course it counts." Stephen jabbed at a hunk of potato with his fork. "I'm going to end up there eventually. I've got to. I . . . well, I kind of have this destiny to fulfill."

Mr. Stewart raised an eyebrow. "Sounds impressive."

"It is." Better not go into details. If this was far enough in the future, Mr. Stewart probably knew more particulars about Stephen's career than Stephen did. "I'm going to change the world."

"How do you plan to do that?"

"I don't know. But I know it's going to happen. It has to, or else there'll be a—"

He stopped on the verge of the word 'paradox'. It wasn't as if he could explain to this man about time travel, after all.


⇔

New York.

As he drifted awake, Jon felt soft lips working against his.

The idea that some random person was making out with him while he was unconscious woke him all the way up in a hurry. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" he exclaimed, blinking rapidly. "What the hell?"

His accoster moved back, and if Jon hadn't been alert already, the next shock would have done the job. This was no random person—it was Stephen.

A small part of Jon wanted to be delighted, but he was too indignant to pay it any attention. "What do you think you're doing?"

Stephen looked stunned and hurt and frightened all at once, but quickly shifted into indignation of his own. "I'm saving your life, that's what!"

"By molesting me in my sleep?"

"I was not!" insisted Stephen, quickly replacing his glasses. "You got knocked out by the hive mother! Remember?"

Jon rose awkwardly up on his elbows. "Wait. Are you talking about the giant bug thing?"

"Exactly! It gassed you, and you collapsed, and I was administering the antidote! It was completely innocent!" Stephen's red face belied his words, but he pressed on anyway. "I would never come between you and your wife anyway, and believe me, I've had the chance! You should be thanking me, not yelling at me!"

Jon's ire rose again. "For God's sake, Stephen, the divorce was almost a year ago!"

Stephen's eyes went wide. "The what?"

He really didn't know. Unbelievable. "Well, geez, maybe if you ever let me say more than two words at a time to you in the past year and a half, you would have heard about it!"

"Year and a . . . Jon? What year is this?"

"Don't be ridiculous. You know what year it is."

"Jon, please," begged Stephen. "Humor me."

Before Jon could answer, there was a knock on the door, and the person on the other side opened it without waiting for a reply. "Everything all right in here?"

"Doctor!" exclaimed Stephen, turning to the visitor. "What year are we in?"

Jon's stomach did a little flip. Time had blurred the faces in his memory, but one look at that scarf and it all came rushing back.

"Doctor Crazy Scarf!"



"Not a bad name for him," said a woman's voice. Sure enough, there was The Babe, looking exactly as hot as she had almost two decades before.

Vaguely aware that his mouth was open, Jon gaped, first at the visitors and then at Stephen, who was doing a very good impression of a startled deer. "It was you. Twenty years ago. You stole my coffee."

Stephen nodded shakily. "I know it sounds crazy, but . . . ."

It didn't sound crazy at all. What it sounded like was a bunch of stories that Jon had heard from Dave Letterman. Stories about traveling through space and time with a woman named Romana, who was not only a babe herself, but . . .

"Why didn't you ever tell me you'd been the companion of a Time Lord?"


⇔

Montana.

Mr. Stewart sat back and folded his hands.

"I know there's more to this than you're telling me," he said slowly. "But I can promise you this: No matter what the situation, you can't just sit back and assume things are going to happen. You have to make the effort."

Stephen clinked his fork back and forth in the empty bowl. "What if it doesn't work out?"

"I thought you were destined to succeed."

"I am! But . . ." Stephen swallowed. "I don't know if I want to. It's gonna be hard, and I'll have to leave the only people who ever really cared about me. Is changing the world worth that? Is anything worth that?"

"You won't know for sure unless you try," observed Mr. Stewart.

When Stephen replied, his voice sounded very small.

"I know what I have to do. I've always known. But I'm so scared."

Rising to his feet, Mr. Stewart took the dishes from him. "Come sit by the fire," he said. "I know that always makes me feel better."


⇔

New York: 2009.

It wasn't long before the actual emergency personnel showed up, to fumigate the building and collect the dazed staff. Jon put in a brief appearance out front, just to prove he wasn't dead, before the Doctor flashed some kind of high-tech fake medical ID and whisked him away. Stephen and The Babe (now introduced as Sarah Jane, though the Doctor remained nameless) snuck out the back, the latter now carrying a bucket holding the giant alien bug.

They met in front of the boxy blue spaceship that had appeared across the road, and all piled inside—for privacy, Stephen explained. Jon had been dubious until he saw that 'inside' was bigger than it looked. Then the Doctor and Sarah Jane disappeared through the back door to set up a room for the bug, leaving Jon and Stephen alone.

Sorting out the timelines was a surprisingly easy process. For Stephen, the events of 1994 had happened only a few days ago. But by all rights he belonged in the summer of 2008. A year and a half ago.

Armed with that knowledge, Jon was suddenly and painfully aware of how many things he couldn't talk about. He couldn't even reveal that Winters had won the election, much less that the President-elect had been assassinated before he actually took office. And he certainly couldn't add that the Report's ratings had tanked in the new political climate.

(How much worse had it been for this Stephen, visiting '94? No wonder he had been tense.)

Fortunately, Stephen was keeping up the conversation. "So of course I didn't talk to you after I got back," he realized. "I couldn't let anything slip that would change what happens now—and if there were any possibility that something I did led to the divorce, I never would have forgiven myself. I'm probably holed up in my office right now, wondering if it's safe to talk to you yet."

He grabbed Jon's shoulders, steered him towards the door. "Find me, Jon! Don't waste another minute!"

"Hang on!" protested Jon, shaking him off. "What am I supposed to bring?"

"What? Nothing. Just bring yourself."

"I can't! Every time I try to get into your studio, you demand to know whether I brought you anything. I've tried a bunch of random stuff, but you never let me in. What is it you're looking for?"

Stephen blinked at him. ". . . I have no idea."

Jon folded his arms. "Well, geez, you'd better figure it out soon, don't you think?"