What kind of things? Interesting things? I love things. Ask anyone.

[themadmanwithabox]

There's a room here for everyone, Doctor.

Even him.

There's always the problem and the peril and the chance that one of their adventures takes them to somewhere dangerous. These days, it's practically written in the small print. Here, though, an inescapable hotel with terrible fears in each of the rooms where one is personalized for you like a very painful nightmare version of an individualized jammy dodger, well, that's not the usual fare.

Still, what's usual? He'll find a way out. He'll save the day for Amy's sake, for Rory's, for the others. It's just that as he's walking down the hall, there's a room. Right in front of him, a room numbered eleven and calling out to him. His feet are moving before he can even consciously make the decision and oh, that's clever, that's something he'd like to better understand when he isn't feeling the constant pull towards a simple little hotel room door. Monsters and devils can wait when there's a mysterious door involved. It pulls you. It calls to you in whispered voices. It wants you and who's the Doctor to ever deny?

It's a simple gold-polished handle. It's a painted door. It's room number eleven and it will contain the very worst of his fears. Geronimo. There's no hesitation when he opens the door to find out what's waiting for him, what could possibly frighten the Doctor so terribly that he brings on a monster, and finds...

Chicken.

There's chicken on spits turning around and around in a rotisserie and a kitchen surrounding them. He steps in and there's chicken. He steps back and he's back in the 1980's earth-styled hotel with supposedly no escape. Behind door number eleven, there's chicken. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he carefully hangs a 'do not disturb' sign on the door and follows the smell of barbeque wafting before him to explore why his worst fear appears to be the kitchen in yet another hotel.

Or maybe it's what Rita means about the halls changing. Maybe he's been banished to the bottom and has to work his way back up to the top. The Doctor whips out his sonic screwdriver and approaches the spinning chickens with severe suspicion, scanning them for alien life or maybe hidden nightmares? The trouble is, the scans reveal that they're chickens. Normal earth chickens.

Oh, and they're also quite tasty, according to the readings.

"And here I am surrounded by chickens with Casanova nowhere to be found. Typical," he remarks under his breath, thinking that'd be more than a debt repaid with one of these tasty things.

Comments

[themadmanwithabox]

"Seeing as the last I went to nearly stole my ship and killed my friends, I do try and give them a wave as we pass," the Doctor admits. "I'm more of an all of time and space bloke, myself," he boasts, tugging on the lapels of his shirt as he straightens his posture and presses his heels together to stand there, as tall and proud as any Time Lord can be. "I've got a ship," he says. "Though, she is somewhat lost and I don't exactly know where she is, even in the last hotel I was in," he confesses, some of the steam fizzling out of him. "She won't be happy over me losing her," he says, and that takes yet another little hit from his pride. "...again," he adds, trying to sneak that one in.

[separateworlds]

"You have a ship that travels time and space," Jane said, both a clarification and a hope for confirmation. A year ago, she might have simply dismissed such a claim as pure fabrication, but at this point such skepticism seemed more blind than belief.

"I'm Jane," she remembered to say, and thrust out a hand to shake, hoping it was a familiar gesture. "I study astrophysics with an emphasis on interdimensional travel."

[themadmanwithabox]

The Doctor regards her hand and reaches out to shake it delicately, but does take that as the opportunity to lean in and press a kiss to both her cheeks in the familiar earth way (though, didn't Craig say he shouldn't? No, he would never say something like that, Craig loved those kisses!) and peers at her with wonder and relief.

"Normally, I'd kick the door open and ask if you wanted to take a look under the hood," he says, given that he does like to impress the smart ones; that always comes in handy later. "That said, she is a bit missing. Still. So, it's a pleasure to meet you, Jane of astrophysics and guru of interdimensional travel. Only interdimensional, though? You know, I'm good friends with Einstein," he boasts. "Once I've made sure my friends haven't been devoured by a praise-happy minotaur and I find my ship, I could take you there," he offers. "Though, of course, if my ship gets destroyed by the minotaur in the 80's style hotel, that would put a damper on that plan, wouldn't it?"

[separateworlds]

The kisses had startled Jane, although in retrospect she wasn't sure why, all things considered. She was still frozen in place, eyes gone wide, when the Doctor began going on about Einstein and minotaurs and the 80s. She allowed herself a moment to sift through the rapid-fire information before she replied.

"That would be amazing," she finally said, figuring it for an honest enough answer. Going back in time to meet Einstein would be amazing, regardless of whether it was actually possible. "Einstein, not the minotaur."

[themadmanwithabox]

"If you think about it, wouldn't it be even more amazing if it was the minotaur with the Einstein levels of knowledge when it comes to physics?" he says, wrinkling his nose with sheer delicate delight at how amazing that would be. "Now," he says, searching around him in a circle. "Somewhere here is a door that leads me back to the hotel I was just in where my friends are being hunted by said minotaur. I've stumbled through a convenient loophole in time, it appears, but convenience can only ever truly be temporary."

He turns once more, gaze landing on Jane. "What do you know about code rewriting itself to change the physical layout of a place you're in to deliver you unto a deity form standing guard of misplaced prisoners?" he asks, as though he's asking if she'd like jelly on her toast, please and thank you.

[separateworlds]

Jane drew a deep breath, mouth open as if she were about to give an appropriate reply, and then huffed it reluctantly out again. "Nothing, sorry," she said, although her face had gone a bit pinched in thought.

"Are we talking about a computer virus? If it was written with a specific objective in mind, wouldn't it then override anything in the way of that objective? If it was efficiently coded, it would in theory be able to change the constructs of the system it was in. Free up a pathway, or create a new one."

[themadmanwithabox]

"Could be a computer virus," he muses, sliding the tip of the sonic screwdriver through the fringe of his hair. Thoughtful as a million possibilities filter through his mind and then he considers whether a computer virus could do what he's been handling. "It seems to want to trap people. But why," he says, hand over his face as he drags it down, the skin as malleable as gum in the process. "Why? Why can Rory see exit doors? Why does everyone have a room? Who is him?" he asks, peering down as if asking her this precise question. "And why should he be praised?"

[separateworlds]

"He's an egomaniac?" Jane attempted, although she was at a complete loss, only following the conversation by the smallest and most tenuous of margins. She might have been able to help more had she been provided more solid information, but it sounded like that was in short supply.

[themadmanwithabox]

"Possibly," the Doctor agrees, narrowing his eyes as he thinks about the likelihood of that being the case. "Potentially. Now, Jane, why are we talking about the hotel I've just come from when the hotel I'm in has chickens?" he asks, a slightly madcap glint in his eye. "What do you say, we split one of these bad boys?" he suggests, sticking a toothpick in between his teeth as he does his best to add a bit of swagger to the suggestion of splitting rotisserie chicken.