No Ordinary Fan Fiction...

Chapter 18

While every other student suffers through their afternoon classes, Darren finds himself jogging beside Bonnie down the corridors, trying to keep up with the Doctor's long, excited strides. Dumbledore is beside them, but Sherlock and John stayed behind, saying something about other important business.

Then a thought occurs to him, where the heck is Joey?

"Bonnie, have you seen Joey? He wasn't at lunch," Darren asks in a low voice as they continue down the corridor. Bonnie's face turns thoughtful. 

"I last saw him in potions, Snape kept him behind because he blew up a cauldron," she replies between puffs. They must be going to the other end of the castle with the amount they've been running. 

Then suddenly The Doctors long legs skid comically to a halt outside an unfamiliar door on the sixth floor, Darren looks expectantly at the others. Dumbledore gestures for The Doctor to lead the way, and he does, turning the knob and flinging the door open with a flourish, standing to the side and ushering the others in quickly. 

In the room stands a single, rather large, wooden wardrobe. A huge, off-white sheet lay sprawled in a heap on the floor beside it.

"Doctor, are you sure this is at all relevant to finding Sami?" Darren asks him, eyeing the wardrobe skeptically. "I really doubt my girlfriend has been locked in a wardrobe..."

"Ah, but that's it, my boy," The Doctor's eyes sparkle, "why would she be? I don't believe this is any old wardrobe." He grins childishly and happily straightens his bow tie. Dumbeldore steps forward then. 

"If I may ask, Doctor, how did you find this wardrobe?" He's looking at it as though he holds some memory of it, but can't place it. 

"Well, I was just strolling with Darren's friend, Richter, his name is, and we..." The Doctor then whirls around and scans the room as though for the first time. "Huh, not sure where he's got to, actually. We  were looking in the wardrobe as he kindly accepted to help me rifle through to find a new tie and..." 

The Doctor trails off. "Well, I suppose it's something you have to see." He strides forward and the others follow, standing in front of the elegantly carved wooden doors. They notice that one of the doors has been left slightly ajar. 

"I'm afraid I can't join you, Doctor, this time," Dumbledore says reluctantly.

"Join us? It's hardly going far, in a wardrobe," Bonnie says. Dumbledore smiles.

"Nevertheless, I shall wait for you to return, I can't leave the school at the moment."

Leave the school?

"Don't worry," he continues, "I'll just play a few games of Angry Birds while I wait. I trust you know what you're getting yourself into, Doctor?" 

The Doctor agrees and nods his head, then reaches for the wardrobe door and opens it wide. Without turning around he says, "grab a coat on your way, you'll need it." 

Darren looks at Bonnie, who's frowning, then turns back to see The Doctor stepping into the wardrobe. "On our way where?" He asks impatiently. The Doctor just grins to himself. Darren shakes his head and climbs in after him, Bonnie following him soundlessly. It's very cramped and dark, sandwhiched between the furry coats.

"Ow! Bonnie that was my foot!"

"Sorry!"

"I can't see a bloody thing..."

"Can you move your elbow from my ribcage please?"

"Whose bum was that?"

Darren unhooks a random coat from a hanger, as The Doctor had asked, and holds it to him as he pushes through the wardrobe. It seems to stretch on for a rather long time. Just as he was beggining to think about turning back he hears a cry of triumph and the next thing he knows a cold breeze hads swept through his hair. He reaches his hand out and strokes a coat, his hands come away covered in snow. 

"Doctor?" He exclaims. Then he hears a yelp of surprise from Bonnie. He stumbles headfirst through a cluster of branches until he finds himself and Bonnie laying sprawled on a blanket of snow, blinking confusedly. 

The Doctor is on his feet, his hands on his hips, surveying the surroundings. Darren sits up, untangles himself from Bonnie and gawps. 

They're in a forest, thick snow falling around them and coating the leaveless tree's limbs. The air is icy and a shiver shoots through him when he remembers the fur coat he had taken. He stands up slowly, draping it around himself, then helps Bonnie up too. 

She seems just as baffled and in awe as he is. "Merlin's Pants, where are we?"

The Doctor rocks on his feet, the snow crunching beneath him. "I'm not sure, Miss Gruesen, but that's the fun of it, isn't it?"

"What in the name of pants are we doing here though?" Darren asks, swivelling around and taking everything in. The Doctor furrows his brows a little.

"What is it with you two and pants?" He says to himself, then adds more audibly, "I do believe we're looking for your lady friend, Mr Criss." He bounds forward, setting off through the trees. Darren and Bonnie follow.

"You think someone shoved Sami in the wardrobe and she stumbled out here?" He asks, noticing how the trees loom around them and Darren gets the feeling he's being watched. 

"No no, I think the person who befuddled your friend had every intention of trapping Miss Reece in this funny little world... people don't just lock others in wardrobes, she was bound to be found. But here? Who knows where she is." 

Unsurprisingly, Darren doesn't find these words at all comforting, so he and Bonnie carry on in silence.

They walk for just a little while longer until they come across a small clearing where a single lamp post stands, alight with a golden glow. Bonnie shivers and tugs the woolen scarf she had taken more tightly around her. 

She opens her mouth to say something when suddenly they hear the thudding of footsteps and a figure stumbles out before them through the surrounding trees. 

He's dressed in a long coat with a fur collar that is far too big for him, and a red bow tie that's slightly askew. His dark hair flops familiarly into his left eye and when he looks up Bonnie gives a cry of relief and surprise.

"Joey?"  Darren exclaims. Bonnie rushes over to him and grips his arms, steadying him. 

"Joe, what the heck are you doing here? What happened?" Bonnie fixes the bow tie that's drooping from his collar and looks up into his eyes; they're clouded, but the same rich dark colour. 

"Lauren," he says, panting, looking from Darren to The Doctor and back to Bonnie. "I saw... Lauren."

Darren's lips tighten into a straight line. 

"She went through the wardrobe... didn't come out... followed her... I ended up here... thought I was high or something," Joey shakes his head lightly as Bonnie brushes some snow from his shoulder. "But Darren, it's Sami. I saw her, but she disappeared. I lost her, I tried looking, I did..."

"It's alright, we'll find her," The Doctor says, stepping forward and clapping a hand on Joey's shoulder. He nods, looking as though his mind is elsewhere. 

"You're looking quite dapper in that bow tie, Richter," Bonnie says with a playful smirk. 

"Yeah, well, he picked it out," Joey nods to The Doctor, who gestures for them to follow him. 

So they do.