I SING THE BODY ELECTRA 1/1 TTR-Peri arc IIIiii-!TDF by Paul Gadzikowski Bits of this work may derive from properties of the BBC, Fox, Paramount, et al., but it's non-profit and in no way intrudes on their markets. THIS TIME ROUND concept by Tyler Dion, after Kielle. Previously in the author's TTR Peri arcs: In the tavern Outside continuity, Peri married all eight Doctors. The revelation during an adventure in KING ARTHUR IN TIME AND SPACE space that Peri is Arthur's half-sister turned out to be only the opening installment of the Doctor's Outside Continuity campaign to offer Peri multiple paternity scenarios to chose from. Most recently, the Doctor has elected to bring Peri's mother into their search. Following the lead gained thereby, with Adric and his buddy Spike from BUFFY tagging along for the ride, Doctor Six and Peri arrive in the office of Harlan Ralph Brown, the world's second-richest software magnate - who has turned out to be the Valeyard. -- "All right, what's the joke?" Doctor Six snapped. "No joke," said the Valeyard. "I've told you lot, I'm done being a funny villain. Unlike some," he added pointedly to Spike. Spike grinned ferally. "You tried to violate any Slayers in their bathrooms lately? Oh, and by the way, mate, black is not your color. It takes panache." "Then what's your point?" Doctor Six demanded of the Valeyard. "Think about it," the Valeyard smugged. "Who am I, *really*?" "Well -" Doctor Six began. "Oh, ick!" Peri cried, cringing away from both of them, knocking Adric into Spike. "Eww!" "She knows," said the Valeyard. "Ick! Eww!" Peri screamed. "Peri, what's the matter?" Doctor Six tried to take her by the shoulders, but Peri broke for the office doors. "My husband is my father!" Doctor Six watched Peri's retreat a second. Then he leapt over Harlan Brown's desk and hauled the Valeyard to his feet by his collar, only to put him back in his chair with a rather forcible nudge to his nose from Doctor Six's fist. "Violence, Doctor?" said the Valeyard, smugness undimmed as he wiped a trickle of blood from a cut. "That's not supposed to be like you." "Obviously you've never read the contemporary fan reviews of 'The Two Doctors'," Doctor Six threw over his shoulder as he rushed after Peri. Adric took it upon himself as the remaining good guy present to put the Valeyard in his place with a suitable bon mot. "It'll never work, you know," he blustered. The Valeyard acknowledged with a shrug. "I'm a DOCTOR WHO villain. I'll always fail in the end, I know that." His smirk faded into a determined glare. "But that doesn't mean I can't chill your soul while I'm at it." "Sorry, no soul here. Peddle your iceboxes elsewhere," said Spike when Adric had no further reply. "Come on, squirt." Adric and Spike caught up with Doctor Six and Peri on the plaza in front of the office building. Doctor Six was gently propelling Peri back in the direction whence the four had arrived, insisting her concern was groundless and that he would prove it, successfully talking her down from full panicky squick to mere jittery agitation. When they'd all arrived back at the 'Round Doctor Six led the others into one of the TARDISes in the car park. "This isn't your TARDIS," said Adric when he saw the console. "It's mine. Doctor Five's." "Well, duh!" said Doctor Six, leading them through the interior doors and down the corridor. "If I want scientific proof - or disproof - of a genetic relationship, to whom am I going to go but the most accomplished biologist in my supporting cast?" Spike ran into Adric in the manner of an object in motion along the same vector as another object in motion farther along which suddenly isn't in motion any more. "You're taking me to Nyssa!" Adric objected. "I'm taking Peri to see Nyssa," Doctor Six retorted, raising his voice in the manner of a third object still in motion pushing a fourth object along and thereby increasing the distance between itself and the first two objects. "You can keep up and face your demon, or you can run away." He knocked on a door and ushered Peri through. "I thought I was your demon," said Spike with mock petulance. "A little warning would've been nice, is all," Adric grumbled, following Doctor Six and Peri. Doctor Six's exposition recap to Nyssa had already started when Adric entered her lab with Spike. Seeing Adric, her fascination face flipped to her fury face at fifty mph. "What are *you* doing here?" Nyssa's fury face had nothing on Spike's. He flamed on, the fangs and forehead ridges and fiery eyes of BVS vampires, and said, "He's with me." Nyssa shifted on the stool next to her workbench and turned her attention back to Doctor Six. Doctor Six had fulled from Peri's back shorts pocket the hairbrush which her mother had given her in the previous episode. He selected a dark hair and handed it to Nyssa. "Peri," he said. He selected an auburn hair with its root gray. "Peri's mother," he identified. Handing the brush back to Peri, he plucked a hair from his own head and handed it to Nyssa. "And," he added, handing Nyssa his wedding ring, "on this you'll find traces of the skin off the Valeyard's nose. I want a DNA analysis and comparison of all four." "That's why you hit him," Spike realized. "You wanted a tissue sample." "The Valeyard and I are physically and spiritually two different people whatever our respective origins. This will prove it," Doctor Six said as Nyssa took a scraping, handed his ring back, and mounted the four DNA samples in an ACME four-mount DNA-analyzer on her workbench. "I suppose the violence in 'The Two Doctors' is similarly misunderstood?" said Adric, the room's ranking expert in being misunderstood. "Yes, though that's nothing so clever," Doctor Six admitted. "It didn't come across well onscreen, but Androgums are much stronger than most humanoids. For me to have used less than deadly force against Shockeye would have been tantamount to suicide." He was interrupted by a sound effect from the analyzer. "The Valeyard is not Peri's father," Nyssa announced. "In fact, Peri's mother isn't Peri's mother." "Oh, just *great*," Adric groused. Everyone turned to him. "What now?" Nyssa demanded. "You're about to tell us Peri's mother is a hermaphrodite, aren't you?" That took Nyssa down a peg. "Well, yes." "Afro-what?" said Spike. "A person with both sets of physical gender characteristics," explained Doctor Six. Spike became quite speechless. "And," Adric continued, "that your analysis shows that Peri's mother is really, biologically, Peri's *father* and it's the identity of her *mother* that's still up in the air." "Well, yes." "And that makes this whole sub-arc a sendup of the who's-Cartman's-father episode of SOUTH PARK, and that makes me Kenny and I'm going to die! Twice, maybe, because that was SOUTH PARK's only two-parter." "I thought you weren't going to let that bother you any more," said Doctor Six [http://www.enteract.com/~detroyes/teotp/fiction/frhope.html] as Spike stepped a pace away from Adric. "'Bother', no. But I reserve the right to remain annoyed. Even Matt and Trey have admitted that it's only funny the first thirty or forty times." "Watch it, mate," Spike suggested, "Matt and Trey finally decided to leave Kenny dead." "Being dead doesn't cramp *your* style any." "I'm not going to try anything in here," said Nyssa testily. "There's valuable equipment in this room. Now shoo, I've got work to do." "About that," said Spike, "the barrel of whatever you were working on when Cupcakes and the peacock came in is sticking out from under the dropcloth you threw on it." Nyssa glared at him harder than at Adric as the four exited into the corridor. "A SOUTH PARK crossover," said Peri, her normal healthy whine restored. "First I'm one of King Arthur's weird sisters, now I'm Eric Cartman." "But *not* married to your father," Doctor Six belabored. "If Darth Vader's at the bar when we get back inside the 'Round," Peri insisted, "I'm not jumping off any power antennae or losing my hand. Just so everyone knows." "Maybe I'm not going to die," said Adric, in some wonder, as they moved through the console room and out the main doors to the 'Round car park. Doctor Six sighed theatrically. "Too bad. What's a TTR for, if not funny deaths?" he asked just before an upright piano fell on him. Naturally the other three jumped and yelped when it happened. Then they watched patiently - noting the complete absence of any cargo plane or hover lift anywhere overhead to provide a rational explanation - till Doctor Seven climbed up through the piano out the lid, still in Doctor Six's clothing like in 'Time and the Rani'. "You'd do that for me?" Adric asked him. "He does that for anyone," said Spike. "Label says 'idiot'. Sorry, 'hero'. Same thing." Doctor Seven waved it off. "Enjoy it while it lasts. Killings said he'd spend his vacation writing something friendly." "I thought you said 'two-parter'," Spike said to Adric just before a sudden lorry flipped Doctor Seven over its back like Brad Pitt in 'Meet Joe Black'. Doctor Eight sat up on the tarmac in Doctor Six's clothes while the other three gathered around him as if he'd fallen off a radio telescope. "You're right, Adric, it gets old quickly. Let's go inside before this turns into 'Curse of the Fatal Death'." FIN Summary for archivist: Humor, TTR, Peri arc IIIiii, !TDF Doctor Six, Peri; Adric, BUFFY's Spike; Nyssa, the Valeyard Not a family affair after all.