Archive of Our Own ^beta

“We’re all out of thyme in here,” Rose was explaining, “Fred went to go and get more.”

“What is it you’re making?” Alvin Ransom asked. He had ventured into the kitchen to snitch a snack. As a portrait he didn’t really get hungry, but he supposed he felt like eating for the simple fact he was bored. He was thankful to be alive, but it was frustrating to not be able to leave Tamerlane House for more than seven days. It was a difficult transition from when he could travel to many places for as long as he wanted, to being tied down so.

“We’re trying to make a pizza,” Rose answered.

“And we’re not the only ones out of time!” Fred suddenly shouted, barrelling into the kitchen, and making the other two jump.

“What do you mean?” Alvin asked.

“I mean Laura Glue and Edmund just disappeared in that funny looking space car,” Fred said.

Alvin dropped the fish finger he was holding and it landed in the custard, splattering it onto the counter. “The DeLorean?!” he exclaimed.

“Yeah, that’s th’ one.”

“Good heavens, what on earth were they doing with that?” Alvin asked.

“I don’t think they meant to actually time travel with it,” Fred answered.

“You have no idea what time they went to, do you?” Alvin asked slowly.

“Not a clue,” Fred confirmed.

“Well, they’ll probably be right back soon though, won’t they? Especially if they end up somewhere they don’t like,” Rose pointed out.

“If they can,” Alvin said, “Last time i checked the vehicle was on a quarter tank of fuel.”

The room drifted into a moment of silence as that settled in.

“We’ve got to find them, then,” Rose said decisively, “There’s plenty of ways to time travel.”

Alvin felt a twinge of pain in his stomach as memories of Hank surfaced. He would be better equipped for something like this.

“We could try that big blue box,” Fred suggested.

“Now hold on you two, we can’t just go gallivanting off into time by picking a random machine. Anyway, the last time i checked, the door was locked,” Alvin said.

To his surprise, Rose laughed. “She just didn’t want to let you in,” she said.

Alvin blinked as the girl moved around the corner and out the door, followed by Fred. After a second, he went after them and followed them to the doors of the Police Box.

“She’s angry with you and the others from taking her away from her Thief,” Rose said, running a hand gently over the doors. She gripped the handle and smiled at Alvin. “But she’s tired of being cooped up in here waiting for him, so she’ll help us find Laura Glue and Edmund.”

To Alvin’s shock, Rose pulled open the door and stepped inside. Never before had the door been opened. They had tried everything from picking the lock to using a ram, but it never showed any suggestion of opening, yet here was Rose, walking inside. Fred let out a low whistle as he looked inside, and Alvin felt his own jaw drop. He had known it must have been dimensionally transcendental, making it bigger on the inside, but actually seeing it was still quite breathtaking. He stepped inside the warm, golden light of the machine and was greeted by an array of sites and sounds. In the center was a console, humming pleasantly and in the middle of that was a glass tube, moving rhythmically up and down. A tweed jacket was strewn over a railing, and a pair of red high heeled shoes were hanging from a monitor. For a moment, Alvin felt like he was intruding on someone’s home.

“I think… we should start with this lever,” Rose said.

Before Alvin could stop her, she pulled it and Fred was falling into him as the box suddenly lurched.

“Edmund, I think next time you should let me drive,” Laura Glue said.

“Would you have remembered to check the fuel?” Edmund asked, irritably. Laura Glue gave him a pointed look from the passenger seat.

“Did I not ask you about it before we started?” she asked.

The young cartographer stumbled over a few words and turned a light shade of red before giving up. Laura Glue leaned over and kissed his cheek anyways.

“Let’s see if there’s a place to get some fuel,” she said, getting out.

Edmund followed and stood next to her as they looked around the car. There was no sign of civilization anywhere, only a crowded jungle.

“There’s probably something,” Laura Glue tried, going to the back of the car and getting out her wings. “I’ll fly up and see what I can spot.”

A couple moments later, Edmund was alone under the canopy of trees. He eyed the jungle around him and sat against the hood of the DeLorean. Strange animal noises sounded in the distance and there were one or two bird cries. To his right, a bush rustled a few feet away. He turned and looked towards it, watching the leaves move.

“Ed!” shouted Laura Glue, appearing above him, “You won’t believe it! There’s a massive pasture a few miles away and guess what’s grazing there?”

“... Goats?” he asked hopefully.

“Dinosaurs!” she answered excitedly.

“Dinosaurs?” Edmund asked, throwing another look at the bush. The rustling had stopped.

“Isn’t that cool? Of course.. That means,” Laura Glue trailed off.

“There isn’t any fuel nearby,” Edmund finished.

The first place they landed was a cold wasteland, where Alvin got locked out for twenty minutes after trying to take over the controls. It was only after excessive pleading and reasoning on Rose’s part that he was finally let back in and they were allowed to try again.

“Is there some way that she can track the car?” Fred asked.

“I don’t know,” Rose said, looking over the console, then to Alvin, who raised his hands.

“It’s not going to tell me,” he said, still uncomfortably cold. At least he hadn’t been naked, like Hank.

“Oh! What’s that?” Rose asked as something like a sonar appeared on the monitor.

Alvin and Fred both looked at it as a red blip appeared. Sequences of numbers appeared on the edges of the screen, making a grid, and Alvin suddenly shouted in triumph.

“That could be the DeLorean! Look at the numbers, they’re years,” he said excitedly. “That must be where we need to go. My word,” he added as the realization of when it was dawned on them all.

“Well,” said Rose, standing back to try and figure out which levers to pull and buttons to push. A button glowed with color on the opposite end, while the track of a lever lit up in front of her. She frowned slightly. “This keeps getting harder, how is the driver supposed to reach that?”

Another contraption lit up in another spot.

“It’s not for a single driver,” Alvin said, stepping back to look at the console. “It’s made for six.”

“How so?” asked Fred.

“It makes a hexagon, look,” said Alvin.

Rose and Fred stepped back and saw he was right.

“There’s only three of us,” Rose said.

“We can manage if each of us takes two sides,” Alvin said, “Shall we try this again?”

Edmund yelled as he and Laura Glue ran through the jungle, followed closely by a reptile with half a bowling ball for a head. A pachycephalosaurus, if he remembered correctly. He and Laura Glue had accidentally stumbled into a nesting area, and upset the mother. Laura Glue suddenly leapt up and pulled Edmund up by the arms. The dinosaur plowed through the brush underneath them. It immediately became confused, having not seen where the two had gone while its head was down, and did not think to look above her. Laura Glue set Edmund in a tree and perched next to him while they waited for it to leave.

“I was worried about the one’s with sharp teeth, but I didn’t think these ones would be so dangerous,” he whispered.

“Neither did I,” Laura Glue replied as the dinosaur started back to the nest. “We’re going to have to find something to eat soon.”

Edmund’s stomach growled in response and he nodded in agreement.

“The pasture had a stream going through it, so at least we’ll have water,” Laura Glue said.

“Maybe there’s some fish we can get. I’d rather not hunt a dinosaur,” he said.

It was difficult work, hiking through the jungle, and they were both worried about running into another unfriendly over-sized lizard. Laura Glue paused and signalled for Edmund to stop. Ahead of them the plant life was bending and crashing over in slow motions. A long neck stretched into view, followed by a long body and a whiplike tail. More of the diplodocus came into view, and the couple watched in wonder. Laura Glue nudged Edmund’s arm suddenly and turned to him.

“Wanna catch a ride?” she said.

“On one of those?”

“It’ll be fun, come on,” she said. She flew up and lifted him into the air. She flew over the backs of one of the dinosaurs and lowered him down, then settled down next to him. The diplodocus didn’t seem to mind, taking them for some friendly bird or whatnot.

They were able to take the dinosaur to the pasture, and even all the way to the stream. There they slid off and Laura Glue proceeded to rub the top off the dinosaurs head. Edmund joined her after a moment of hesitation and soon both of them were laughing cheerfully.

They were interrupted by a sudden unnatural wheezing sound. They frowned and looked around and Edmund pointed to the other side of the stream. “There!” he said as a blue box appeared. Three familiar figures stepped outside and Laura Glue crowed in delight.

“Laura Glue! Edmund!” shouted Rose. Her cries of delight were echoed by Fred and Alvin as they splashed through the water to meet each other.

“We thought we were going to be stuck here forever!” Laura Glue said.

“How did you get the Police box to open?” Edmund asked.

“It seems to like Rose,” Alvin answered with a shrug, “Where’s the DeLorean?”

“It’s in the jungle,” he answered, sheepishly. Then added quickly, “Undamaged, just out of fuel.”

“This is a nice spot for a picnic!” Rose suddenly said from where she, Laura Glue, and Fred had started playing with a young diplodocus.

“We don’t have anything to eat though, unless there’s something in the box,” Edmund said.

“Lucky for us, there is,” Fred answered.

“What?” Rose asked in surprise.

“I found a kitchen with some homemade pizzas freshly cooked, when Mr. Ransom was stuck out in the cold,” Fred answered.

“Fred, you’re amazing!” Laura Glue exclaimed.

When the companions had retrieved the pizzas, they settled in the grass on top of a hill to eat. As they did so they watched the herd of diplodocus graze and some of the younger ones play in the water. Other kinds of dinosaurs, like herds of triceratops, and stegosauruses came as well and the party watched them in delight until the sun began to set. When they had finished, they all entered the Police box and took a side. Rose piloted the extra space left, and they retrieved the DeLorean, fitting it easily inside the bigger-on-the-inside box, then returned home.

Alvin paused before he exited the Police box and turned to look back inside. Hank would have loved this, he thought as the sound of the other’s laughter faded out of the basement. There was a clicking noise from the machine and a projection filled one of the large circles on the wall. Pictures of different people flashed quickly upon it before settling on the man they had taken the box from. The surface beneath Alvin’s hand warmed comfortingly, and for the first time that day, the man understood what the box was trying to say.  

“Those were friends he lost, weren’t they?” he asked in a whisper. “... but he’s learned how to move on and keep going?”

The console seemed to hum, sounding somewhat sad. Alvin smiled slightly at the ceiling, tears resting on the edge of his eyelids.

“I’ll make sure he finds you,” Alvin said, patting the console. The blue doors closed behind him as he exited, but before he walked away, he turned to them.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.