The Other Side from the Greatest Showman

            "  and if it's crazy

            live a little crazy  "

*****

And that's when my phone started buzzing.

Without pausing to consider how I could possibly have cell service in England 2007, I reached for my back pocket. The left one still held the sonic screwdriver, and my fingers brushed over it as I fumbled for my phone.

I put it to my ear without taking my eyes off the TARDIS-closet. The doors were still open, but the light was fading. I wasn't going anywhere near that thing.

"Hello?"

"Ash, get in the closet."

I pulled the phone away from my ear, squinting at the display. The number had at least a dozen digits, and three little dots at the edge of the screen indicated that it was actually longer.

I paused to consider how I could possibly have cell service in England 2007.

A faint voice continued speaking, and I quickly put it back up.

"Sorry, what?" My voice sounded calmer than I felt. I was staring into the brightness, trying to make out anything on the other side.

The annoyed pause was tangible. "Ash, it's me, it's the Doctor. Do you even know how long it took to find your phone and get it connected? It's like finding a needle in a haystack, except the haystack is the universe and there are a million billion needles, all practically identical, and really, it's nothing like that. Are you going through the closet or not?"

"That's a terrible analogy." I stepped to the side, even farther from the glowing doorway. "Is my phone supposed to be the needle?"

"Well, sort of. Didn't exactly have your phone number, did I? It's been trial and error - I had a very awkward conversation with your president, by the way."

"I don't have a president, I'm Canadian. Wait - no - please tell me you're not talking about Trump."

The Doctor coughed awkwardly. "Look, I just called to say you need to get in the box. That's the only way through. Do you trust me?"

"Less and less, actually."

The light was definitely getting dimmer. I was slowly resigning myself to - to... oh gosh, I was actually going to do it. I'd have to walk toward the freaky glow-in-the-dark TARDIS-closet, into the— no, I couldn't. It was crazy.

My legs hit the desk. I couldn't back up any further. I was gripping the phone like a lifeline, the only connection to anything resembling normal at the moment.

"Look, I don't know how to convince you," came the Doctor's voice, "but it might interest you to know that your friend is in a spot of trouble. According to my sources, we're in the year 1876, which would explain the samurai, cowboy, and elderly French pirate. It's because—"

"The what now?" Almost immediately forgetting my trepidation, I was at the glowing doors.

"The cowboy seems nice enough, but we can't understand a word the samurai is saying. You'll have a job freeing your friend, they've been arguing over whose prisoner he is, I think..."

The phone was starting to cut out. I squeezed my eyes shut, muttered "For Narnia," and stepped into the light.

It was like someone had punched me right back out again – but I wasn't falling back into the dorm room. I kept falling, further and further backwards, and the light kept getting brighter. My stomach almost dropped out as I was jerked to a stop and pushed forward again. Like a sideways elevator, was my half-conscious thought as the light suddenly winked out, and I was stumbling into a hallway.

"Ash?"

My phone was still pressed to my ear. The voice was loud, almost echoey. I shook my head to regain my balance.

"Yeah, I'm here," I said, unsure. "What did you say? My... friend is someone's prisoner?"

"That's right."

A tall figure several paces away straightened, one hand raised to his face.

"John Smith, was it? Fell through just after I did, wasn't much help either. He is your friend, right?"

"Um..." Several realizations collapsed over me all at once. The brown-coated figure turned, a phone held to his ear. For a moment, I thought it was the Doctor, but not quite—

A broad grin was crossing his face at the sight of me, but I could only stare in confusion. It had been the Doctor's voice on the phone, I'd been sure of it. Where was he?

The Doctor's voice came over the phone again, as the cosplayer's mouth kept moving. "Hullo, Ash. Welcome to 1876."

*****

I needed a better name for the cosplayer.

The frustration was starting to get the better of me as I followed him through the house. It was a big, creaky Victorian house with more rooms than anyone could know what to do with, and the cosplayer insisted on creeping through it like a ninja. As we moved, he threw whispered updates over his shoulder at me, and I smiled and nodded and thought about why the Doctor's coat fit this guy so well.

"Right, so the best I can figure there's three of them," he started at the end of the hallway I'd fallen into. "The samurai was there first, like he'd been guarding the opening. That was nearly it for your friend, but then the cowboy jumped in."

We moved around the corner as soon as he deemed it safe. The floorboards complained about our passage, but I hardly noticed, trying to sort out my thoughts. I mean it wasn't like this guy could really be the the Doctor. He didn't look like him, for starters.

Behaviour-wise, though, it was getting really difficult to tell them apart. The way he'd gone off on that stupid tangent about haystacks and cell phones - I could picture it, word-for-word, as belonging to Doctor Who. Either he was a really good actor...

"That's when she came in," he was saying, and I blinked.

"She? Who?"

He paused, annoyed. "The pirate. She's something of a leader, and so far it's kept Mr. Smith alive. Far as I can tell, anyway. Last I saw he was being dragged away unconscious, but I've seen worse."

"Where did they take him?"

"Not sure. I stopped..."

He stopped.

My eyes jumped from the mud-streaked floor to the carpeted walls to the antlered chandelier just above his head. "What?"

"The smell," he said vaguely, dropping to one knee to examine the tracks on the floor. Picking at the dried mud with a fingernail, he brought the same finger to his mouth, immediately making a face.

"Twelfth-century copper," he said. "Very distinct. A lot, in fact, like those wall sconces."

His arm swept up, and I saw them. Ornate copper candle-holders attached to the wall in a way that made me worry vaguely about the flammability of the carpeted walls. Wasn't that a thing, like, in the 60s?

"Pretty," I observed. "Why is there copper in the mud then?"

"Question number one!" He stood up, spinning to face me. Raising a finger, he swept on without breaking eye contact. "Question two, why is there mud on the hardwood floor? Question three, why is there a hardwood floor in a carpeted hallway? I mean it's just bad taste for one thing, but that leads into question four – why is there a carpeted hallway in nineteenth-century England?"

He paused, the raised finger only centimetres away from my nose. I leaned back slightly.

"Question five," I countered, "why is nineteenth-century England in Jackson Lake's closet?"

"Oh, that's not as pertinent. It actually explains more than anything. Obviously, this Lake character fell through the spatio-temporal hyperlink—"

"The magic door?"

"—just like your Mr. Smith did. So now he's wandering lost around Victorian London, probably out of his mind about the truth. That's assuming of course that the, er, magic door landed him in the same place as it landed Mr. Smith."

"Well, we fell through into the same place."

"No, we didn't," he insisted. "We walked through in a very dignified fashion. That makes two of us who know what we're doing, anyway."

I raised my hand. "Um, I don't know what I'm doing."

"Fine. One of us."

"Do you, though? I mean we've just been standing in the same hallway for like five minutes, and the pirates still have my friend, and you don't even know where he is, so..."

He threw up his hands. "Right! No one knows what they're doing. I was just lying to make you feel better about the situation. But it's all right, I work best when I don't know what I'm doing."

"Are you lying to me again?" I cocked my head.

"Yes. Let's get on with it, shall we?" He spun around again and set off incautiously down the hall. "Question four, or six, whichever it was—"

I didn't move. "Where did they take him?"

"Him? Oh, yes, him." The voice floated back to me from around the next corner, and I suddenly found it necessary to catch up.

The adjoining hallway was wider, and more tastefully decorated. The wallpaper looked properly Victorian. Pinkish light filtered in through stained-glass windows on the left. Another passage, a few doors down, led off to the right, a tiny round wood table holding nothing but a coloured cube sitting across from the opening. Curious, I went to pick it up.

"So I was following pretty close, mind, and if your friend hadn't dropped his jacket I'd have been right on their tail," he was saying, pulling out his sonic screwdriver to examine one of the windows. "I picked it up, and good job too, 'cause this was in the pocket."

He stopped just outside of a tiny dining room, pulling out a pink flip phone. "That's when I called. Bit odd, though, doesn't look like his style."

Forgetting the cube in my hand, I reached for the phone, almost surprised at the realization falling out of my mouth. "Rose," I said.

"Yes?"

The voice was soft and cultured, almost - though I'd never thought the word about anyone - genteel. It only took a single syllable to convince me that the owner of this particular British accent was everything the British thought they were.

And when I turned to look, the image shattered.

The girl was like the house - messy, and full of bits that looked out of place. Her curly hair was exactly the wrong shade of red for the orange cloak draped over most of her person. She was almost a foot shorter than I was, with a turned-up nose and a chin that might have been too wide if it wasn't completely split by an evil grin. Her gaze flickered to the cube in my hand.

"That's mine, thanks," she said, her fingers darting out from behind her cloak. I stepped back just in time.

"Wait," I said, looking at the cube properly for the first time. "Where did you get this?"

She stilled, her eyes meeting mine. "Do you know what it is?"

"Do you... not?"

"That's a bit rude," interjected the cosplayer suddenly. "She's probably never seen one, obviously not from her century."

The girl squinted at us, her nose turning up even more. She shifted from foot to foot, dainty lace-up boots peeking out from a brown skirt hem under her cloak.

"It's just a Rubik's cube," I said. "A game. You turn the squares, try to match up the colours. I'm awful at it."

Not very hopefully, I clicked a few squares around. The girl's eyes widened, and she twitched as though to reach for it again, but the cosplayer plucked it out of my hands.

"And you are, miss?" he asked with mock politeness.

Her grin turned crocodile-like again. "I thought you knew," she said sweetly. "I'm Rose. Rosaline Amity Shaw, professional kleptomaniac. And you, unfortunately, are in my house."

"Unfortunately?" I started nervously, but I hadn't even finished the word when I felt the air stir behind me.

My companion sucked in his breath sharply. The point of a rusty sword was under his chin, the weapon's owner slowly coming around to face us. My first impression was hair. Just peeking out from under a mass of bouncing black coils was a thin red bandanna, presumably for keeping one's hair out of the way, but in this case not doing a whole lot.

Everything below the hair, though, was screaming pirate. A ragged blue coat was the outermost of about twenty layers of clothing, covered in beads, chains, a scabbard matching the sword in tarnish, and random straps and trailing bits of fabric everywhere. I was getting strong Johnny Depp energy, but buffer, messier, and with more eye makeup. She grinned widely at us, and I realized I wasn't breathing.

From behind me stepped a figure that could only be the cowboy. He'd moved so silently I didn't notice until he was right there. The wide brown Stetson on his head shadowed his eyes, but dark hair traced his jawline to accent the knowing smirk. His brown fingers rested lightly on the leather holster inside his vest as he stopped next to Rosaline.

The redhead's eyes were trained on me. "All right, Ginger, don't move or your pretty friend here gets it."

My mouth opened. I darted a baffled look between her and the cosplayer.

Rosaline smirked. "Jean and MoJo here will reunite you with your... accomplice." She nodded at each in turn.

"Howdy," drawled the pirate.

The cowboy shot a look at her, then shrugged and added "Arrrgh."

The British girl's grin got wider, if possible. "You'll have just enough time to get a bit upset at your friend, I think, before we kill you."

*****

So I was thinking of having Adele as the chapter song because, you know, "hello from the other side, I must've called a thousand times" but then I changed my mind because the Greatest Showman is incredible and y'all need to see it.

These chapters are getting seriously longer. Idk what to do. Am I describing too much or not enough? Are the characters talking too much? If I cut down scenes would you all scream and cry? Please tell me! I mean if you're loving it the way it is, I guess I'll just... make more chapters? 😉