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It all happened rather fast. One minute they were working as normal, the next a space pod came crashing through the windows to land directly in the center of the bridge.
Immediately on alert, Colonel Ibrahim and his soldiers surrounded the pod, guns aimed at the door of the craft as it slowly slid open, a waft of 80s-esque fog spreading out from its hissing hinges.
The opening seemed to take forever, certainly long enough for heels to clack across the building and up the centre of the floor. Kate came to a halt not far from Colonel Ibrahim, her own gun cocked and in her hands ready to fire. She wouldn't forget the giant dog turning her to dust any time soon.
“My name is Kate Lethbridge Stewart, Commander in chief of UNIT and I demand you show yourself!” demanded Kate as the fog cleared.
A shadow appeared from the disco ball lighting behind the haze. Soon a humanoid shape took form and a face recognisable as human stepped out into the UNIT office.
Kate, for all her professionalism, had to remind herself to focus as she struggled to raise her eyes from the most stunning pair of legs she'd ever seen, in the most fabulous pair of white pvc gogo boots she'd ever seen. The person had feminine features, an impressive cleavage hidden beneath a bush of heart shaped chest hair, and the thickest beard of black curls known to man.
They grunted, and then with a voice that sounded like they'd smoked 20 cigarettes a day for 40 years they said “I’m Desmond Harbinger and I bring Cupid, the god of love’s, gift of true love and consensual workplace relationships or whatever…”
Kate barely had the chance to say “not again” before Desmond pulled a handful of sparkles from the bum bag clipped to the waistband of their booty shorts and blew it across the room.
Kate braced herself for a moment, eyes shut tight waiting for the cold embrace of death once more… but when nothing happened, she opened her eyes to survey the room. Everyone seemed to look as confused as her as they brushed the glitter from their clothes.
Kate sighed and tried not to think about how much the cleaning staff were going to bitch about having to get the glitter out of the new carpets.
“I'm sorry, who did you say you were again?” Asked Kate, pushing the end of Ibrahim's gun down. This person was only a threat to the Henry hoover in the cleaning closet.
Just as Desmond opened their mouth to speak, another whispered from the disco ball confines of the ship behind them.
“Desmond! Dessie! Did it work?!”
Kate rolled her eyes. She knew that voice.
“Doctor?”
The Doctor’s head appeared in the doorway, a look on his face that said he was busted.
“Kate!” He exclaimed, as if just noticing she was standing there, “what are you doing here?” He asked, tucking his hands under his armpits in awkwardness as he stepped out of the vessel.
“Doctor what are you doing here?” she really wasn't in the mood for his antics. She could see the glitter littering every surface, wincing in pain at the memory of how long it took to clean up the rose petals from the toy maker and then the dust from Sutekh. The cleaners were really going to throw a fit with this one, destroying the building in a fiery blaze genuinely seemed like the better solution.
“Oh you know… just passing through. Thought I'd drop by with some lurve dusht I found in the Teladium galaxshay” he said, his voice a poor imitation of Sean Connery as he shook his butt and waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.
Kate rolled her eyes as he shimmied towards her.
“Are we feeling amoroush? Are we feeling hot? Are we feeling uncontrollably in lurve?”
He looked at her expectantly and she almost didn't have the heart to break his. Almost being the key word here.
With a dead panned face and a deliberate blink that dislodged micro sparkles from her eyelashes, Kate stared the time lord down.
“Doctor…”
“Oh!” Said the time lord suddenly, his facial expression at least sobering, “you really don't feel it do you?”
“Feel what, doctor?” Kate sighed, already bored with whatever the doctor was playing at this time.
“The passion! The urge! The lovin’!” He yelled excitedly, his face dropping once more when she didn't respond.
“Wow ,” he said suddenly, hand coming up to his forehead “I got scammed didn't I?”
Kate nodded grimly, brushing some sparkles off her shoulders.
“Damn… I spent a lot of money on that stuff.”
Kate watched with annoyance as his disappointed face broke out into a wide grin.
“WAIT THERE!” He said before shoving his hand unceremoniously inside Desmond’s bum bag and whipping out an instruction sheet.
“Let's see here… do not operate heavy machinery, not suitable for children under the age of 12… AHH! Here we go! In order to activate Mrs Loony Cupid’s rainbow unicorn love dust, the dustee must see their true love.” He lowered the manual and locked eyes with Kate.
“Take a look around the room Kate, take a look and find yo self some luvin’!” He yelled excitedly.
“Doctor, what are you talking about?” sighed Kate once more, genuinely praying the doctor hadn't just hired some randomer who sounded like Harvey Feirstein to throw HR nightmare fuel all over her bridge staff, she just thanked god Morris and Rose were out of office today.
The doctor directed his gaze with a knowing look at Kate “I saw you two whilst I was up there in my TARDIS. Holding hands like a couple of teenage lovers.”
Kate’s cheeks bloomed red as her eyes flicked across the room before turning back to the Doctor.
“I-” began Kate before Susan Triad moaned loudly.
“Oh! Oh I feel it!” They all turned to Sue, her wide smile lighting up the room “oh I feel it!” She repeated with a cry before launching herself across the floor and up onto the platform where The Vlinx was stationed.
With blushing cheeks she threw her arms around his shoulders and planted a kiss on his metal cheek “Oh Vlinxy pet, what you do to me! What you've done to me!”
The Vlinx’s emotionless face remained stoic in spite of the lipstick now staining his cheek.
The doctor blinked before turning back to Kate.
“O.K? Each to their own I guess, I won't kink shame the god of death's creation if she likes a little bit of metal!” He said, his enthusiasm growing as he came back to Kate.
“Kate you sly dog, like em big and muscly do you? Another member of UNIT aye? The apple really doesn't fall far from the tr-”
“GET OFF HIM!” Came a cry from the other side of the room. Suddenly all eyes were on Mel as she sprinted across the floor and threw her arms around the Vlinx on the opposite side of Susan.
The two, usually thick as thieves since the Sutekh incident, now glared daggers at each other. Mel held the Vlinx’s head to her chest with one hand and massaged his metal shoulder with the other.
“Wow, really Melanie?” Whispered the doctor in disbelief.
“The Vlinx made me feel things I never thought possible, he's mine now and forever. No human could ever compare to him and his magical fingers!” pleaded Mel with an urgency never heard before from the ginger woman.
The doctor once again blinked in shock.
“O…kay…?” he said with a shuddering voice, “the Vlinx has a type.”
The Doctor slowly turned back to Kate, his eyes meeting hers for a moment before doing a double take back at the two older women fawning over the stoic faced robot alien who'd yet to react.
“Really?” He murmured in disbelief once more “the robot ?”
“Hey doc,” came the gravelly voice of Desmond, “I threw the glitter, now where's my payment?”
Distracted, the doctor waved his hand in the general direction of the ship “in my jacket pocket”.
Desmond disappeared back inside the ship as the doctor turned back to Kate, clearly over the theatrics of whatever stunt he was trying to pull.
“Kate, just look at Christofer for me.”
In Kate's defense, she didn't look right away. The Doctor was not the boss of her and she’d fight anyone who told her otherwise.
Kate turned to look at the Colonel, and as he smiled back, she gasped, the air leaving her lungs as electricity shot through her entire nervous system. The dopamine levels peaked in her brain and a dewy love sick look over took her features.
“Oh… how could I have been so blind?” She cried, stumbling towards him, “of course. Your strong arms, your chiseled body, your brilliant mind,” she gushed and the Colonel felt his cheeks blush pink at the attention, his normally set jaw breaking as a love sick smile of his own broke out across his mouth.
Suddenly Kate's arms were outstretched as she approached him. In return, he held his arms out too, ready to wrap them around her when she was close enough. He was going to kiss her. His mind was made up. All those months of pining, all those months of watching her when he thought she wasn't looking, all those months of wanting to taste her lips on his, feel the curves of her body under his hands, and now he was going to get his chance.
Kate was mere steps from him and his eyes blurred as his heart thumped against the inside of his ribs.
And then he felt a different thump. Solid and cold against the front of his uniform.
He looked down to see her press her gun to his chest and his hand came up instinctively to hold it in place.
“Hold that for me will you Christofer?” And just like that she was gone, stepped past him entirely. He stood there in shock as he listened to her footsteps walk away from him.
Shaking his head, he caught sight of the Doctor's jaw on the floor and turned in time to watch Kate straddle the Vlinx's lap, wrap her arms around his neck and pull him in for a kiss.
“I know we said it would be a one time thing, but I’ve thought of nothing else since,” flirted Kate in low tones, nuzzling his metal chin with her nose before drawing back to look the robot in the eyes. “I'm game if you are?”
The doctor watched in disbelief as Kate’s gaze moved from each of the Vlinx’s eyes to its mouth. As if without thought, she gravitated towards him until her lips were moving against the front of his face plate, the other two women showering kisses to his cheeks.
Heavy clacking from Desmond’s heels signaled his return from the depths of the ship.
“Hey thanks for the twenty,” they said, holding up a £20 note whilst they chewed with their mouth open.
“I'm also keeping these jelly babies I found, that's nasty by the way.”
The doctor slowly turned his gaze to Desmond and watched them chew thoughtfully for a moment as they regarded the three women. It took them all of 5 seconds to shrug and make up their mind.
“Good for them!” Desmond exclaimed nonchalantly before saddling up to the Colonel “hey pretty boy, you wanna jelly baby?” they asked, holding the bag out to them.
Ibrahim, face like a kicked puppy, sniffed and tore his gaze away from the robot being lavished with attention.
“Can I have a red one?” He asked pathetically.
Desmond stared at him with an unreadable expression before closing the bag and pulling it away.
“I can see why she chose the robot dude.”
Ibrahim balked “What does it have that I don't?!”
Desmond took a moment to consider and watched the three sparkly women practically grind against the robot as he remained motionless. They then turned back to the almost weeping soldier.
“It's probably the tentacle things you know,” they said, voice devoid of emotions as the soldier frowned, “sci-fi bitches be loving tentacles.”
“Oh daddy Vlinx,” cried one of the women, “I'd be willing to share if it meant having even a small part of you.”
It was the doctor's turn to let out a pathetic whine as he buried his face in the side of the ship, his fist beating against it.
“No,” he whispered as tears ran down his face, “not daddy Vlinx. Not the Brigadier’s daughter. Not my Melanie!”
With a flourish of disjointed cries, the doctor fled back into the ship, the tell-tale sounds of the TARDIS’s iconic scrapping handbrake permeating the silence between the words whispered intimately on the other side of the room.
They all turned to the spectacle of the room once more in time to see the Vlinx finally move his arms around the small of both Susan and Mel's back’s. He drew away from Kate as she stroked circles across his metal chest plate from her position still straddling his lap.
“Hot metal.” He said happily, as though describing his thought process for naming the Zedex.
Unable to take it anymore, Colonel Ibrahim turned away.
“I hate that robot.”
As Ibrahim made to leave the room, over panting women’s breaths he heard the Vlinx say:
“Don't hate the playa.”