This Time Round: What Joke? - by Tyler Dion This Time Round was positively humming. Some Radw'ers had waylaid the Fool of a bouncer and snuck in. They had then promptly dragged John and Mike out of retirement, torn up their D- notices, and plied them with questions and beer. John's replies had sent the fans scurrying for 20 year-old almanacs while he hid a smile behind a pint of bitter. Meanwhile, in the opposite corner, Mike was holding forth a lengthy discourse of just what kind of a woman Corporal Bell *really* was. Earlier that afternoon, an entire lecture hall's worth of students from St. Oscar's had awkwardly strolled in. Loudly showing off the permission slip from their archaeology professor, they had all sidled up to the bar in a giant wave of intentionally haggard student life forms. Now, three hours later, they were just a quarter of the way through their homework assignment for the weekend of draining the pub's reserves dry. And they were very noisily continuing their assignment with dogged gusto. For once, the computer was being used by not St. Erin, but the three allotted members of the PMEB. St. Erin had been banished upstairs to the unused library to write "This Time Round is not dimensionally transcendental" one thousand times. For, as you and I both know, dear reader, the pub merely appears to be so. And ignoring them all, Grace Holloway sat with Sam Jones at a table, sharing old memories. "No!" Sam gasped. "No way!" Grace merely nodded. "Mm-hmm -- Oops, look out." The Doctor -- Sam's Doctor -- came up to them, smiling pleasantly. "Hullo, Grace. How's Brax these days?" She shrugged. "So-so. Last time I saw him, he was complaining about some faculty member who kept destroying the local bars and putting it on his tab." Sam couldn't contain herself any longer. "So where to next...Mister Spock?" She knew it was downright cruel, but somehow that knowledge didn't make it seem any less funny. The Doctor went pale. "You *told* her, Grace?" "Eh." Grace shrugged. Just then, an elongated shadow loomed behind the Doctor. Spinning around, he came nose to Panama with his previous self. "Hello," the Doctor said cheerily to himself, raising his hat slightly. "I've been meaning to ask you," he addressed Grace, "what did you think of our little joke?" "Joke?" the Doctor echoed in confusion. "What joke?" With a small sigh and a motion too fast for Grace or Sam to follow, the diminutive Time Lord plucked something out of the taller Doctor's eyes. Opening his hand in a flourish, the Doctor displayed a pair of contacts. With blue irises. And, if examined with a microscope, human retinas. Sam and Grace ducked beneath the table simultaneously as the scuffle began. "Doctor Who" and associated characters is property of the BBC. The kind, lovable, merciful people they are for letting us rant on like this. (Score the brownie points any way you can, people! We might get a movie out of the deal.) This Time Round was conceived by me (imagine that!) and borrowed from Kielle's Subreality Cafe with permission.