Another performance?

Ruby clambered to her feet. Her natural instinct was to start covering, but there were a lot of goblins, and she was worried that they might start advancing. Instead, horrifyingly aware of her nudity, she took up a fighting stance, ready to strike out at any goblins which came her way.

"Geronimo!" Came a cry from above.

The Doctor glided down and landed on the conveyor belt in front of Ruby, holding onto a rope as he went.

"Right." He looked around at the crowd of now very confused goblins. "So, erm, I'm the Doctor." He gave a curtsey, picking up Lulubelle's basket as he bent down. "I'm curtseying, and this is my friend, Ruby Sunday." He gestured to the naked girl, who couldn't remove the expression of shock from her face as she copied his curtsey.

"That's me!"

"And we would just like to say..." the Doctor looked around at all of the goblins, who while still hesitant were beginning to snarl. "That I love your song!"

The Doctor began snapping in time. "Music's great, isn't it? Every race in the world loves music. And I am certainly no exception. So." He stopped, tilted his head, then swiftly pointed to the stage and yelled "Rock it, Janis!"

Instantly, the goblin band sprang back into action, picking up the same tune as before, and to Ruby's amazement, the Doctor began to sing his own new verse!

Cos the goblin king, oh the goblin king
It's so good to meet you, you great big thing.
I can see you're having a fun day.
Meet my friend, she's Ruby Sunday.

Before Ruby had a chance to react, the Doctor had grabbed her hand, spun her forward to face the Goblin King, and taken Lulubelle from her and placed her back on the ground.

Dazed but trying to keep up, Ruby quickly came up with

It's good to meet you, good to greet you.
Good to say how-diddly-deet you.
It's my birthday, root-toot-toot.
I'm up here in my birthday suit.

As Ruby sang, the Doctor pulled the intelligent gloves out of his pocket and slipped one on, checking the battery on the other one.

Ruby finished her verse with

But goblins you can go to hell
'Cause you're not eating Lulubelle

The Doctor grabbed her hand again and swung her back, handing her the other intelligent glove as he did so.

Me and Rubes, we got just one hope
If I have understood that rope.

Ruby hastily put on the glove, flushing as she realised that technically she had something to wear again.

Cos stuck up there when things got hot
I think I found the master knot.

The Doctor grabbed onto the rope he had glided down on, still hanging there, as Ruby slid the handle of Lulubelle's basket up her arm.

The master knot has been undone.
That's when we start having fun!

The Doctor pulled on the rope again, and planks of wood around the ship began to move, leaving a hole right next to where they were standing. Ruby quickly grabbed the Doctor and held on as the Doctor wrapped a caring arm around her, and they jumped into the hole and plummeted out of the ship.

Careering down at tremendous speed, the Doctor shouted "If you reverse intelligent gloves, you get heavy!"

Ruby looked down at the city rising up beneath them. "How do we stop?"

"Love the glove, Ruby! Love the glove!"

Well, that didn't help at all. Ruby looked down at the city below and thought about what a bad day it was to be wearing a skirt. If anyone down there happened to look up right now, they'd see her-

oh, no. She wasn't wearing a skirt anymore. And that definitely wasn't a good thing.

As they approached the roof, the rope finally started to slow down, and Ruby hoped that no one had seen her. She scampered over to the still-open skylight and placed Ruby down at the top as she climbed down, picking up her snagged skirt on the way into her room. The Doctor followed, handing Lulubelle down to Ruby's waiting arms, first. Ruby walked over to the baby cot and placed Lulubelle back inside, safe at last. Then she decided to tend her other predicament.

"Doctor, could you stand out in the hall for a minute?"

"Why?"

"So I can get dressed."

"Ah. Yes, I suppose that is a little awkward." He stepped out of the room and into the hall. Ruby heard the muffled sound of him walking into grandma's room and starting a conversation, but she couldn't make out the words, nor did she care to. She walked over to her dresser and pulled open the bra drawer. Still empty. Oh well. But then she opened the pants drawer. That was empty, now. It hadn't been before. She wondered if the goblins had made another stop-off at her apartment while they were busy on the ship. She supposed there was no other explanation.

Refusing to put her skirt on with nothing underneath, she opened her tights drawer and pulled a pair on, followed by some tartan shorts. Then she grabbed a red jumper and pulled it over her head. She did a quick jump, and seeing how much her boobs were flopping around under it, she took it off, put on a tank top, then put the jumper back on. Much more secure.

She stepped out into the hall, just as the Doctor stepped out of nana's room, and heard the front door open. Mum!

"Here comes Santa, laden with presents." She cocked her head at the sight of the Doctor. "Who's your friend."

"This is... " Ruby hesitated. He hadn't even given her a real name! "the... Doctor. And Doctor, this is my mum, Carla."

"A doctor? What do we need a doctor for? Is something wrong with the baby?"

The Doctor jumped in with a hasty explanation. "It's just a routine visit, that's all."

Carla looked at him suspiciously. "Routine visit for what? Cherry doesn't like doctors, and Ruby and I have both had our checkups. Anything for Lulubelle would've been done at the hospital already." She crossed her arms. "Are you two lying to me?"

Ruby, having had enough stress for the day without having to explain that she had almost lost the baby to ravenous goblins because she had the same birthday and kept losing her clothes, finally lost her cool.

"Oh my God. Mum, can we just...? Can we just stop for a minute? Because I... I've had enough. This has been the worst day ever, and it is Christmas, and it's my birthday, and it's just been a disaster."

The Doctor quickly went into damage control mode, trying to downplay Ruby's outburst. "No, but there... Look, there was a problem, but it's gone now. No point worrying your mum."

Ruby brought a hand to her eye and wiped away a tear. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just er... What I mean is... they phoned. From the TV show. When you were out this morning. But they didn't find anything. Just... No mum. No dad. No brothers or sisters. No cousins. Just..." she hung her head sadly. :just... nothing."

Carla swiftly stepped forward and swept Ruby into a hug.

The Doctor looked in astonishment at Ruby, as if seeing her in a whole new light. "You're adopted?"

Ruby let out a slight laugh. "Did the black mum and grandma to a pasty blonde girl give it away?"

"I didn't really give much thought to that. That sort of thing isn't really a concern where I- well-" He stopped, as if hiding something.

"What do you mean?" Asked Ruby, realising again how little she knew about her new friend.

"I was adopted." The Doctor blurted it out, as if it was something he'd never had a chance to say before.

"Are you?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I only found out recently."

"Well," said Carla, "that's a coincidence."

A light, distant sound of thunder reverberated through the room.

Ruby's eyes widened in horror. "Don't say that!"

"So," Carla continued to the Doctor, ignoring Ruby, "do you know who your parents are?"

"No, no, I was just... abandoned."

"Oh, you were a foundling, just like Ruby. Even bigger coincidence."

At that, a much stronger clap of thunder could be heard.

"Oh, maybe we'd better not talk about coincidence, okay?" said Ruby.

Carla tottered off over to Ruby's room. "How about we see the baby?" She picked Lulubelle up out of the cot and held her up. "Oh, she's just the cutest. Don't you just want to eat her up?"

The Doctor laughed nervously and couldn't stop himself from saying "Oh, now that's a coincidence."

BOOM

The apartment seemed to shake, decorations fell over, and suddenly, a big crack sprouted through the ceiling, as if from nowhere.

"What the hell?" Shouted Carla.

"Don't move!" Yelled the Doctor as he raced ov-

Ruby blinked. Where had the Doctor gone? He had been here one moment and then suddenly-

And Carla wasn't in here, either. She walked out of her room and into the kitchen, where Carla was looking distressedly up at the ceiling.

Ruby looked around in confusion until the door slid open and the Doctor walked in, stuffing that device he had earlier back into his pocket.

"Oh, yes." The Doctor grinned widely. "Oh, there you are!"

"What? Where did you go...? I turned around and you were gone. What happened?"

The Doctor waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, lots of things. Cos they went back. You were gone. They took you as a baby. So I went back, and then... I forgot something."

Suddenly, he turned and walked back out of the flat, closing the door behind him, as if there was nothing left for him to explain.

5 minutes later, the Doctor was still gone, and Ruby was leaning over the kitchen counter. Carla walked back in from Cherry's room, and Ruby looked up at her.

"When was Houdini?"

"What?"

"When was he, 1900s? 1920s? He said 'time travel'."

"What are you on about?"

"He said... I was taken as a baby... and he..."

Ruby grabbed her favorite fur-lined coat off the wall, and hurriedly strapped on her boots.

"Where are you going?" Carla asked as Ruby stepped out of the apartment wordlessly.

She hurried down the stairs and stepped out onto the sidewalk, looking around and seeing no one but good ol' Mrs. Flood.

"Mrs. Flood, did you see a man? Tall, big leather coat?"

Mrs. Flood smiled widely and nodded slowly.

"Oh, great! Where did he go?"

Mrs. Flood looked knowingly across the street and tilted her head. Ruby looked over to see the big blue box from earlier. It said "Police Public Call Box" on the top, and as she looked at it, the door unlatched and slid a little inwards. She looked back at Mrs. Flood, who smiled and nodded again. Strange, she was usually more talkative than that.

But Ruby had bigger things to worry about. Like time travel and goblins.

She stepped across the street and stepped into the box.

No. Way.

She stepped back out. She walked around it, carefully touching every side, making sure it was real. She stepped inside again, seeing a sprawling white set of ramps easily 100 times the size of the box, with a big... thing in the middle. And up there, over the railing, was the strangest man she'd ever seen.

Ruby shook her head in amazement. "Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor."

Mrs. Flood looked at the blue box as it slowly disappeared, while Abdul ran up to her and said "Mrs. Flood, did you see that box disappear?"

She patted him playfully on the shoulder and said "Oh, stop worrying, Abdul, it's Christmas!"

Abdul looked over at the kerb where the box had been, then turned and walked back to his flat.

"What's the matter?" Mrs. Flood whispered, seemingly to an empty street. "Never read an ENF story before?"