MICKEY ARRIVES AT CARDIFF CENTRAL RAILWAY STATION AND HEADS TO THE REDEVELOPED OVAL BASIN. The TARDIS is in front of the huge water tower, a very avant-garde slab with water pouring down it. He walked towards the TARDIS knocking on the door only for a young man with brown hair to answer it.
"Who the hell are you?" the man asked in an American accent.
"What do you mean, who the hell am I? Who the hell are you?" Mickey asked confused.
"Captain Jack Harkness. Whatever your selling, we're not buying." Jack said, trying to close the door.
"Get out of my way!" Mickey pushed past Jack into the TARDIS.
"Don't tell me. This must be Mickey." Jack said as he closed the door.
"Here comes trouble!" the Doctor rolled his eyes as he reattached some wires, "How're you doing, Ricky boy?"
"It's Mickey!" Mickey snapped, glaring at the Doctor.
"Don't listen to him, he's winding you up," Rose said.
"You look fantastic," Mickey said to Rose, grinning. Rose smiled, pulling him into a tight hug.
"Aw, sweet, look at these two." Jack smiled at Rose and Mickey, before turning to the Doctor and Lindsey. "How come I never get any of that?"
"Buy us a drink first." the Doctor grinned.
"You're both such hard work," Jack whined, making Lindsey laugh.
"But worth it." Lindsey laughed.
"Did you manage to find it?" Rose asked Mickey, pulling away.
"There you go." Mickey hands over Rose's passport.
"I can go anywhere now." Rose grinned.
"I told you," the Doctor said up from his platform, "you don't need a passport."
"It's all very well going to Platform One and Justicia and the Glass Pyramid of San Kaloon," Rose chuckled, "but what if we end up in Brazil? I might need it. You see, I'm prepared for anything." she winked at the Doctor.
"Sounds like your staying, then," Mickey said disappointingly, looking at his girlfriend sadly. "So, what're you doing in Cardiff? And who the hell's Jumping Jack Flash? I mean, I don't mind you hanging out with big-ears up there-"
"Oi!" the Doctor whined.
"Look in the mirror." the Doctor rolled his eyes, "But this guy, I don't know, he'd kind of-"
"Handsome?" Jack grinned.
"More like cheesy."
"Early twenty-first Century slang." Jack groaned, "Is cheesy good or bad?"
"It's bad."
"But bad means good, isn't that right?"
The Doctor walked down the steps towards Mickey, "Are you saying I'm not handsome?" he whined.
"We just stopped off." Lindsey said to Mickey, "We need to refuel."
"Who are you?" Mickey asked, eyeing her suspiciously.
"I'm Lindsey Stirling," She replied, holding out her hand, "Nice to meet you, Mickey."
Mickey smiled, shaking her hand. Rose glared, clearing her throat rather loudly. "The thing is, Cardiff's got this rift running through the middle of the city. It's invisible, but it's like an earthquake fault between different dimensions." She told him, wanting him to move away from the redhead.
"The rift was healed back in 1869..." the Doctor continued.
"Thanks to a girl named Gwyneth, because these creatures called the Gelth, they were using the rift as a gateway but she saved the world and closed it..." Rose carried on.
"But closing a rift always leaves a scar, and that scar generates energy, harmless to the human race..." Lindsey followed, the Doctor told her about what happened in Cardiff when he and Rose meet Charles Dickens and the Gelth.
"But perfect for the Tardis, so just park it here for a couple of days right on top of the scar and.." the Doctor jumped in.
"Open up the engines, soak up the radiation." Jack grinned.
"Like filling her up with petrol and off we go!" Rose cheered.
"Into time!" Jack yelled.
"And space!" the four of them laughed, high-fiving.
"My God, have you seen yourselves? You all think you're so clever, don't you?" Mickey joked.
"Yeah." the Doctor said.
"Yeah." Rose grinned.
"Yes!" Lindsey laughed.
"Yep!" Jack threw in, patting Mickey on the cheek.
· ━━━━━ ·⚘· ━━━━━ ·
"Should take another twenty-four hours," the Doctor informed them as he took Lindsey's hand as they walked out of the TARDIS onto the Cardiff Oval Basin. "which means we've got time to kill." he grinned.
"That old lady's staring." Mickey pointed.
"Probably wondering what five people could do inside a small wooden box." Jack laughed, wrapping an arm around Lindsey kissing her head. The Doctor glared at the American.
"What are you captain of, the Innuendo Squad?" Mickey snorted,
Jack glared, making a 'whatever' gesture, and starts to walk away.
"Wait, the Tardis," Mickey protested as they started to walk away, "we can't just leave it. Doesn't it get noticed?"
"Yeah, what's with the police box? Why does it look like that?"
"It's a cloaking device, like a disguise," Lindsey told them, leaning against the TARDIS door, smiling.
"It's called a chameleon circuit." the Doctor nodded, smiling at Lindsey, "The Tardis is meant to disguise itself wherever it lands like if this was Ancient Rome, it'd be a statue on a plinth or something. But I landed in the 1960s, it disguised itself as a police box, and the circuit got stuck.
"So it copied a real thing?" Mickey looked at the TARDIS in awe. "There actually were police boxes?"
"Yeah, on street corners. Phone for help before they had radios and mobiles. If they arrested someone, they could shove them inside till help came, like a little prison cell."
"Why don't you just fix the circuit?" Jack asked.
"I like it, don't you?" the Doctor pouted.
"I love it." Rose flirted, stroking the siding. Jack looked at her in disbelief as she was stroking the box.
"But that's what I meant. There are no police boxes anymore, doesn't it get noticed?"
"Ricky, let me tell you something about the human race." the Doctor said, swinging an arm around Mickey's shoulder, "You put a mysterious blue box slap-bang in the middle of town, what do they do? Walk past it. Now, stop your nagging. Let's go and explore."
"What's the plan?" Rose skipped over to the Doctor, wrapping her arm around his, pressing herself against him.
"I don't know. Cardiff, early twenty-first century and the wind's coming from the east. Trust me, the safest place in the universe." He grinned, reaching for Lindsey's hand as he walked up to him, linking their hands together.
· ━━━━━ ·⚘· ━━━━━ ·
"I swear, six feet tall and with big tusks."
"You're lying through your teeth!" the Doctor snorted.
The five of them sat in a cafe on a small jetty but the harbor side
"I'd have gone bonkers! That's the word - bonkers!" Rose laughed.
"I mean, it turns out the white things are tusks and I mean tusks! And it's woken, and it's not happy." Jack continued.
"How could you not know it was there?" Lindsey asked, laughing.
"And we're standing there, fifteen of us, naked."
"Naked?!" Rose and Lindsey laughed.
"And I'm like, oh, no, no, it's got nothing to do with me. And then it roars, and we are running. Oh my God, we are running! And Brakovitch falls, so I turn to him and I say."
"I knew we should've turned left!" Mickey blurted out. The Doctor laughed.
"That's my line!" Jack pouted, playfully glaring at the dark-skinned man.
"I don't believe you." Rose gasped, "I don't believe a word you say ever. That is so brilliant. Did you ever get your clothes back?"
The Doctor stood up, "Doctor?" Lindsey asked, wondering what was wrong. He didn't intentionally ignore her but he walked over to the nearby table snatching a newspaper from the man who was reading it. He frowns as he looked at the front page.
"No, I just picked him up went right for the ship, full throttle. Didn't stop until I hit the space lanes. I was shaking. It was unbelievable. It freaked me out, and by the time I got fifteen light-years away I realized I'm like this." Jack continued his story. Rose glanced over to the Doctor who looked up at them.
"And I was having such a nice day." the Doctor said, as he holds up the front page of the Western Mail, with the picture the photographer took of the Margaret the Slitheen from Downing Street.
· ━━━━━ ·⚘· ━━━━━ ·
The group of five headed straight to City Hall, "According to intelligence, the target is the last surviving member of the Slitheen family, a criminal sect from the planet Raxacoricofallapatorious,"
"Say that ten times fast." Lindsey joked, making Jack chuckle.
"Masquerading as a human being, zipped inside a skin suit." Jack continued. "Okay, plan of attack, we assume a basic fifty-seven fifty-six strategy, covering all available exits on the ground floor. Doctor, Lindsey, you both go face to face. That'll designate Exit One, I'll cover Exit Two. Rose, you Exit Three. Mickey Smith, you take Exit Four. Have you got that?"
Rose scowled as Lindsey was going to be with the Doctor and not her. Why is it always her? Rose thought bitterly.
"Excuse me. Who's in charge?" the Doctor raised an eyebrow.
"Sorry. Awaiting orders, sir."
"Right, here's the plan." the Doctor paused, "Like he said. Nice plan. Anything else?"
"Present arms," Jack ordered as they each pull out a mobile phone, Jack happened to get Lindsey's phone to her from her time when he found out she went missing. She saw there were a lot of missed calls and messages on her phone that she had to delete everything because everyone believed that she was dead.
"Ready."
"Ready."
"Ready."
"Ready."
"Ready. Speed dial?" Jack asked.
"Yup." the Doctor agreed.
"Ready." Rose agreed.
"Yeah." Lindsey agreed.
"Check." Mickey agreed.
"See you in hell," Jack smirked, as they split off.
· ━━━━━ ·⚘· ━━━━━ ·
The Doctor and Lindsey headed towards the Mayor's office hand-in-hand, they walked up to a young man sitting at a desk by the door.
"Hello, I've come to see the Lord Mayor." the Doctor greeted.
"Have you got an appointment?" the man asked.
"No, just an old friend passing by. Bit of a surprise. Can't wait to see her face." Lindsey raised an eyebrow as he grinned.
"Well, she's just having a cup of tea." the man informed them.
"Just go in there and tell her the Doctor would like to see her."
"Doctor who?"
"Just the Doctor. Tell her exactly that. The Doctor." Lindsey told him.
"Hang on a tick." the mangoes into the Lord Mayor's office. The Doctor and Lindsey share a look as they what they expected a teacup smashes on the floor. The Doctor grinned, making Lindsey rolled her eyes chuckling. The man comes out again looking unnerved.
"The Lord Mayor says thank you for popping by. She'd love to have a chat, but, er, she's up to her eyes in paperwork. Perhaps if you could make an appointment for next week?" he told them.
"She's climbing out of the window, isn't she?" the Doctor asked.
"Yes, she is." the man admitted.
The Doctor pulled the man out of the way, heading into the Mayor's office, Lindsey pulled out her phone.
"Slitheen heading north," she informed them.
"On my way," Rose said threw her teeth as Lindsey spoke.
"Over and out," Jack reported.
"Oh my God." Mickey whimpered.
The Doctor and Lindsey spotted Margaret running but before they could do anything the Mayor's assistant grabs onto the Doctor wrestling with him. "Leave the Mayor alone!" he cried.
Margaret reaches the bottom of the ladder and takes off her brooch. She starts to run but sees Rose coming towards her, snarls, and removes her right earring. Then Jack comes running from the opposite direction. The Doctor finishes with the assistant and sees her running in the only available direction - across the front of the building.
"Margaret!" the Doctor yelled, getting down the ladder, he helped Lindsey down as they chased after the Slitheen.
"Who's on Exit Four??" Jack yelled.
"That was Mickey!" Rose answered.
"Here I am." Mickey appeared panting.
"Mickey the idiot." the Doctor groaned.
"Oh, be fair. she's not exactly going to outrun us, is she?"
Margaret vanished.
"She's got a teleport!" Jack whined, "That's cheating! Now we're never going to get her."
"Oh, the Doctor's very good at teleports."
The Doctor holds up his sonic screwdriver and Margaret reappears, running towards them. Vanish, reappear. Vanish, reappear.
"I could do this all day." the Doctor grinned.
"This is persecution." Margaret snared, "Why can't you leave me alone? What did I ever do to you?" she cried.
"You tried to kill me and destroy this entire planet." the Doctor deadpanned.
"Apart from that."
· ━━━━━ ·⚘· ━━━━━ ·
"So, you're a Slitheen, you're on Earth, you're trapped. Your family gets killed but you teleport out just in the nick of time. You have no means of escape. What do you do? You build a nuclear power station. But what for?" the Doctor asked. They walked into a room where a model of a nuclear power plant sat on the table in the middle of the room.
"A philanthropic gesture." Margaret replied, "I've learned the error of my ways."
"And it just so happens to be right on top of the rift," Lindsey said, not believing what she said.
"What rift would that be?" she asked confused.
"A rift in space and time. If this power station went into meltdown, the entire planet would get sucked in then boom!" Jack explained.
"This station is designed to explode the minute it reaches capacity."
"Didn't anyone notice?" Lindsey asked, "Isn't there someone in London checking this sort of stuff?"
"We're in Cardiff." Margaret scoffed at the American girl. "London doesn't care. The South Wales coast could fall into the sea and they wouldn't notice. Oh. I sound like a Welshman. God help me, I've gone native."
"But why would she do that?" Mickey asked the Doctor, "A great big explosion, she'd only end up killing herself."
"She's got a name, you know." Margaret glared.
"She's not even a she, she's a thing." Mickey retorted.
"Oh, but she's clever." the Doctor said, he pulls the middle section out of the model and turns it over to reveal electronics. "Fantastic."
"Is that a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator?" Jack gaped.
"Couldn't have put it better myself." the Doctor praised.
"Oo, genius!" Jack snatched the extrapolator from the Doctor's hands, "You didn't build this?"
Lindsey walked around the table at the now broken model of the nuclear power plant, before a banner caught her attention, "Bad Wolf." she whispered understanding the words. The Doctor looked towards her as if he heard her. His attention turned towards the banner.
"I have my hobbies. A little tinkering." Margaret boasted, shrugging her shoulders.
"No, no, no. I mean, you really didn't build this. Way beyond you" Jack said.
"I bet she stole it." Mickey scoffed.
" It fell into my hands." Margaret disregarded.
"Is it a weapon?" Rose asked, nervously.
"It's transport." Jack assured, "You see, if the reactor blows, the rift opens. Phenomenal cosmic disaster. But this thing shrouds you in a force-field. You have this energy bubble, so you're safe. Then you feed it coordinates, stand on top, and ride the concussion all the way out of the solar system."
"It's a surfboard," Mickey exclaimed.
"A pan-dimensional surfboard, yeah." Jack nodded.
"And it would've worked. I'd have surfed away from this dead-end dump and back to civilization." Margaret said, bitterly.
"You'd blow up a whole planet just to get a lift?" Mickey said, disbelieving.
"Like stepping on an anthill." Margaret sneered.
"How'd you think of the name?" the Doctor interrupted, turning towards Margaret.
"What, Blaidd Drwg?" She scoffed, "It's Welsh."
"I know, but how did you think of it?" the Doctor asked.
"I chose it at random, that's all. I don't know. It just sounded good. Does it matter?"
"Blaidd Drwg." the Doctor frowned, turning towards them. Lindsey continued to stare at the banner, with a longing look.
"What's it mean?" Rose asked.
"Bad Wolf," Lindsey spoke, she looked deep in. Jack put down the extrapolator, walking over to Lindsey pulling her into his arms, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"Linds?"
"I'm fine," she reassured.
"But I've heard that before. Bad Wolf. I've heard that lots of times." Rose exclaimed.
"Everywhere we go. Two words following us. Bad Wolf." the Doctor frowned.
"How can they be following us?" Rose cried.
"Nah, just a coincidence." the Doctor blew it off. "Like hearing a word on the radio then hearing it all day. Never mind. Things to do. Margaret, we're going to take you home."
'It can't just be a coincidence.' Lindsey thought as she leaned against Jack.
"Hold on, isn't that the easy option, like letting her go?" Jack groaned.
"I don't believe it!" Rose grinned, "We actually get to go to Raxa-" the Doctor rolled his eyes, she glared, "Wait a minute! Raxacor..."
"Raxacoricofallapatorius." the Doctor and Lindsey said in sync. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, at the redhead.
"Raxacorico-" Rose started.
"fallapatorius."
"Raxacoricofallapatorius. That's it! I did it!" Rose cheered, jumping into the Doctor's arms only for him to pull away.
"They have the death penalty." Margaret told them, "The family Slitheen was tried in its absence many years ago and found guilty with no chance of appeal. According to the statutes of government, the moment I return, I am to be executed. What do you make of that, Doctor? Take me home and you take me to my death."
"Not my problem." the Doctor glared.