THIS TIME ROUND: SPECIAL DISPENSATION 1/1 by Paul Gadzikowski DOCTOR WHO series characters and concepts copyright BBC tv "This Time Round" concept by Tyler Dion, after Kielle Peri followed the Doctor out of the TARDIS in a funk. She thought when the Doctor had agreed to take her on for three months that they were going to have some fun. She'd been toying with the idea since they'd met. But while he took her on a tour of the TARDIS he'd been friendly, considerate, and no fun at all. Peri was beginning to wonder seriously whether Time Lords knew what fun was. She cheered up some, however, when she saw that the place where they'd arrived was a bar. Or "tavern", the Doctor insisted. The Doctor escorted her to a table and went to the bar for drinks while she surveyed the other customers for prospects. She saw one of them double-take at her and then turn away. She realized why the Doctor liked it here; everybody dressed as loopy as he did. The Doctor gave it a drink and a half - long enough that Peri had given up on the evening as a washout - before he came to the point. "You realize, of course, is that one aspect of your existence is as a fictional character." "Yah," said Peri, not even surprised. "Something in the air of this place here gives it away." The Doctor nodded. "Exactly. This place is outside of Space and Time - outside of normal continuity, or any at all." "Okay," said Peri. "Are you going somewhere with this?" "One area the present author almost always avoids in his works," said the Doctor, "is my sex life." Peri slugged down the last half of her second beer. "Are there rooms here?" "Ace, is 2A free?" said the Doctor, without taking his eyes from Peri's. "By chance," said the bartender with theatrically exaggerated lack of surprise. As they walked out of the tavern several hours later, Peri noticed that the Doctor's eyes met those of the man who'd double-took at her, a big & tall guy in a clown suit accompanied by a skinny redhead, who smirked at the Doctor. "Creep," Peri thought. But when the TARDIS returned to the unified field of realspace, her memory was wiped of this short incident for continuity reasons. THE END Happy Valentine's Day.