39 - The Lindig Valley Mystery

THE SHINDIG VALLEY MISERY

Ben sits alone in the burned out ruins of a share house, sucking a piece of paper with "absinthe" written on it while tunelessly humming Nico's "The Marble Index" in the vain hope it will act as a mating call for cultured, educated young men who normally turn down Ben's offers of sex.

Finally, she starts to doze off when a stabbing pain runs through her stomach - and is surprised to discover that she hasn't just been kicked in the ribs by some angry person, which is what usually causes this sort of pain.

Startled, she calls out for Katie Ryan to come to her aid, but nothing happens.

Eventually, Ben remembers that Katie left three days ago to live forever in Wales with a small team of militant homophobes to explore, excavate and probably exorcise old monastery as part of the new "Tough on Satanic Worship, Tough on the Causes of Satanic Worship" policy introduced by PM Harriet Hellfire Jones.

Ben feels the pain subside, but still wants to be totally pampered and so texts Katie anyway and the following conversation occurs:

Ben: KATEI KATEI.!1111!111!111!!!1! OMG WTF LOL U TH3RE?!?!?! I CANT 3XPLANE NOW BUT U MUST COM3.!1!1!!!1111!!!111 OMG PLZ!!!!1 LOL

Katie: BEN IM FRUSTRAETD AT BNG DISTURBD!!!!!11! WTF LOL O WUT SI IT?!!!?!??! OMG LOK BEN IMM NOT IN TEH MOD OK??!??!! OMG

Ben: KATEI I KNOW UR BUSY IN SHINDIG VALEY BUT SOM3THNG STRANGE SI GONG ON H3RE AND I NED SOM3ON3 2 LOK AFTER ME RUFLA MAH HARE AND GEN3RALY B MAH SLAEV!11!1!!1! OMG

Katie: IL TAEK A RANECHEK!!11!!1 OMG WTF LOL

Ben: I .!111!!111111!! OMG AHHHHHHHHH........!!!111!!!1!!

Katie: WUT SI IT NOW??!??!?! WTF LOL

Ben: THEYRE SI AN UNFMILIAR TIGHTNES IN MAH S2MACH INTENSIFYNG TIL I FEL LIEK I MIGHT BURST!!!!111 OMG WTF LOL

Katie: O HAEV A FOX GLACEIR MINT AND G3T OVER IT!111! OMG WTF

Ben: NO!!!11! OMG WTF LOL WATE!1!1! OMG WTF TEH PRESUR3S DISIPAETD!1!1!! LOL TAHTS GOD ISNT IT KATEI??!!???? OMG KATEI?!?!??!? OMG HALO?!!?????

Ben is intrigued at the lack of communication... until she realized that Katie has now blocked Ben's mobile.

Before she can start a sobbing rant about how life is so unfair to her, Chiana strides into the ruined lab to check that no remains of Don Quixote have survived to wage war against the whole of life kind.

"Do you fancy giving me a free lunch in the Mermaid Bar?" Ben asks hopefully.

"Nope," Chiana shrugs cheerfully, still sifting through the rubble.

"You sure? You could steal a rare vintage car and speed off into the night, with the wind blowing through our night, maybe visit the fresh Welsh countryside and teach a certain female archaeologist to treat her betters with some respect..."

"Uh, I said 'no'," Chiana clarifies.

"Have pity on me!"

"Why?"

"I have a stomach ache."

"Maybe if you didn't live on alcohol and breath mints, you might digest better," Chiana points out as she turns to leave.

Ben idly rubs her stomach, realizing it is, in fact, slowly started to swell outwards. She screams and desperately begs Chiana to help, but the bored Nebari points out that she has niether the xenobiological skills nor indeed the inclination to do so. Why the hell should she care?

Ben concludes that something strange is happening to her regenerated body and she needs to find the right kind of Doctor to fix it - specially a forty-five-year-old cult favorite Doctor who looks like David Tennant in a brown coat.

Chiana suggests that Ben just ring (or, knowing Ben, just text) the Doctor is question, but Ben awkwardly explains that the Doctor had a hissy fit after Ben decided to abandon the Time Lord forever to see a David Bowie concert and vowed never to see him/her ever, ever again.

"Oh," says Chiana, digesting this news with admirable coolness. "Guess you're frelled then, huh? I mean, there's no way to get in contact with him anyway, right?"


The next morning, Abby Simpson eagerly heads towards a street corner for her rendezvous with the Doctor and Donna as they return to pick her up after her week with her family. However, after five minutes, the TARDIS still does not materialize and Abby uses her phone to contact the Doctor. He explains he hasn't forgotten, but for some reason the TARDIS refuses to materialize.

"Well, head for Cardiff Millennium Centre," Abby suggests. "You need a refeuling anyway."

"You just want to see Jack again," the Doctor deduces with his usual cunning.

"Like you don't," Abby laugs. "See you there."

She hangs up as two strange figures run around the corner - one appears to be a grey-skinned alien woman in a tight furry gymslip, and the other Britney Spears in a wheel-barrow with a pot belly.

"Either Ben Chatham has returned to mess up my life or else... actually, I don't want to even THINK about what else it could be. OK, Benita, what trouble have you got into this time?"

Ben bursts into a long, drawn out whine encompassing all the boring, objectionable and downright dull events she's had to put up with - incompetent alien sorcerers, Visstaker teenage zombies, insane firebeasts, the cult of Don Quixote...

Abby notices that the newly-formed bulge in Ben's middle is inflating as she watches and finally Ben mentions the whole "need to see the Doctor because something terrible is happening to her body".

Abby, feeling even more than the usual amount of pity for Ben Chatham, agrees to take her to Wales - either the Doctor can help her, or maybe Captain Jack and Touchwood... assuming they haven't accidentally released an alien dildo of mass destruction after Tosh and Ianto were having hot sex in the Hub when they should have been doing some proper work.

Chiana grins and admits the idea of such sex-obsessed losers appeals to her Nebari "shag it if it moves and even if it doesn't mentality", but Abby points out that the Touchwood Three gang have got their act together and become professional.

She then breaks up in giggles because she can't keep a straight face.

"Who am I kidding? They have threesomes the way we say 'hello'!"


Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor and Donna realize to their horror that the only reason the time machine would refuse to collect Abby was if Ben Chatham was in the area. The Doctor programs the TARDIS to land at Ashley manor, where Abby's parents and brothers are slightly taken aback. The Doctor dives back into the TARDIS and takes off, returning moments later.

"Right, I just mucked about with the causal nexus so one of the family should be programmed to become psychotically violent and filled with bloodlust whenever they encounter Ben Chatham. Did it work?"

Karl nods. "Ja, Daffid has ulvays strark me as evah-sah-slightly veerd."

David rolls his eyes. "Yeah, it worked."

"Right!" the Doctor shouts. "Allonzee! Time to rescue those we love from those we hate so much we can't even be bothered to remember them!"

"What?" asks Donna. "Like Ben Chatham?"

"Who?" asks the Doctor, baffled. "Oh, HER! Is SHE who we're dealing with? I thought it was the Meddling Monk again. Right, let's DO IT!!!!"


At the outskirts of Wales, Chiana and Abby are blocking out Ben's ranting that SHE is their number one priority and stopping off at a Little Chef when the food is below Oxford quality and there were actually CHILDREN present by cranking up the car stereo with Nine Below Zero's "Eleven Plus Eleven".

"How dare you?!" Ben can be heard screaming. "That horrible music is blasting out into the countryside, annoying the rustic locals as they carry spades! If only it was Tin Machine!"

"SHUT UP!" Chiana roars at Ben.

Finally, they pass through Shindig Valley, specifically the village of Lanfrigid. Ben demands they pull over near a teenage boy playing with a yoyo. "Let me do the talking!" Ben demands, and then speaks very loudly and slowly.

"HELLO... BOYO! AN WHO MIGHT YOU BE... BOYO? I BE BEN THE CHATHAM... THAT BE CHIANA AND THAT BE ABBY. BE. BOYO. DO YOU... NOT MUCH LIKE... STRANGERS AROUND THESE VALLEYS, BOYO? ARE THERE EVIL MONKS WITH LASER BEAMS IN THEIR EYES, BOYO? WILL THEY KILL YOU FOR TALKING TO US, BOYO?"

"Uh, has she had a stroke or something?" the boy asks Abby.

"I wish."

Just then the boy's face contorts with a look of pure terror and he turns and runs off - after seeing Ben's stomach swell outwards to the size of a beachball? Or just because he realizes Ben looks just like Britney Spears? Maybe he has a dental appointment? We may never know.

"OK, this is just freaking me out," Chiana decides.

She and Abby throw Ben out of the car and race away.

"You bitches!" Ben shouts as she struggles to stand up. "There's a bottle of brandy in that glove compartment, and if you so much as swig from it, you'll rue the day you ever came to witness the glory of Ben Chatham!"

She then falls over, which kills the mood somewhat.


Ben finally manages to waddle into the village, but all the shops are closed and no one is around. Ben doesn't know the way to the dig site and so decides to sit on a bench and start shouting for Katie in the wild hope that she might run back and fall in love with her 7-months pregnant transsexual adulterer lust object.

After three hours, Ben dozes off.

Instantly, a group of hooded monklike figures break cover and, groaning with exertion, pick up the bench and carry it into the church. Incense burns, and a strange figure in a leather jacket snaps down a button on a CD player.

Ben is jolted awake as the Stranglers blare out through the church and all the monks start to jive their monky stuff in time with the Gregorian pulse beat flute funk groove, throwing their arms up in the care like they just don't give a monk-ies!

Too many monk jokes? OK...

GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!
GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!

"Where the hell am I?" Ben groans as the leather coated priest continues to dance with the monks and ignore her.

GOD IS GOOD AND HE WILL ALWAYS PROVIDE!
THERE'S NO PLACE FOR THE INVADER TO HIDE!

"Who are you?" Ben demands, but no one is listening.

GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!
GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!

THIS WAS MY LAND, NOW IT'S YOURS!
WHEN WE'RE GONE, IT WILL ALWAYS BE GOD'S!

"Where the hell am I?" Ben shouts.

GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!
GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!

"Pay attention to me, you chav scum heathens!!" Ben roars, and immediately one of the monks draws a savage blade and places it near her neck.

SLIT THE THROAT OF THE INDIFIDEL!
KILL THE CHILDREN SO THEY NEVER WILL TELL!

Ben is sore relieved when the monk takes the knife and continues dancing.

GO-O-O-O-O-O-O-D IS GOOD!!!

The golden-masked figure in the leather jacket starts juggling knives.

GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!
GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!
GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!
GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!
GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD! GOD IS GOOD!

The music fades out and the priest removes his mask to reveal a sharp, angular face, short cropped hair and piercing blue eyes - rather annoying Ben, who was expected a green, slimy face with bulging eyes and a guppy mouth.

"And welcome one and welcome all to the Shindig Valley Cult of Personality!" he exclaims cheerfully in a Northern accent. "I'm Stephen Baxter, but you can call me the Son of God - or 'Doctor', if it's urgent! This is going to be the most FANTASTICALLY disorganized religion ever! So let's GO LOOONNNEEEEEEY!!!"

Ben groans and faints again.


At the Torchwood Hub, yet ANOTHER whipped cream orgy is underway when there is a knock at the big circular DS9 door. Captain Jack swears and leaps up from behind a sofa, tugging off Toshiko's stockings and throwing a tube of KY jelly to Ianto. He opens the door to reveal the Doctor and the Simpson family.

"Hey, handsome!" Jack says breathlessly.

"Jack, this is serious. Is Abby here?"

"I so wish she was..."

"STOP IT, JACK!"

"What? She isn't here, is there a problem?"

"Yes. Two words: Ben bloody Chatham."

"Who?" asks Jack, frowning.

Martha sticks her head from over a corner. "Hey, Doctor! How you going?"

"Pretty badly," the Doctor admits, giving her a wave. "Look we need to find her seriously urgently. She's in the care of an unspeakable form of anti life that looks just like Britney Spears!"

Owen appears next to Martha, dressing in S&M gear. "Oh, HER! Right! Well, are we going to sit around here sobbing into our contraceptives or do something?"

Gwen appears next to Owen. "We have a choice?"

Owen thinks about it. "Ah, fuck em," he says, and returns to the orgy.

"Look," says Jack awkwardly, "We'll look into it. Promise. One last question."

"What?" the Doctor asks.

"Who are all those people?" asks Jack, pointing to the Simpson clan standing behind the Doctor, staring at the naked 51st century time agent with wide eyes.

"Oh, them, they're Abby's family. Kind of worried about her," the Doctor points out with heavy emphasis.

Jack grins his bastardsmileTM. "More the merrier!"

"No! NO! Stop it!" the Doctor says, closing the door. "Honestly, I don't know why I even bothered showing up here, I really don't."

"You know you love it," Jack drawls. "Don't try and hide it!"

The Doctor rolls his eyes and turns to the Simpson family. "Ironic, isn't it? The one place we know Abby ISN'T is the one place she'd most like to be. Come on, you lot, allonzee," he says, heading off.

The family continue to stare at the door and listen the orgy beyond.

The Doctor sticks his head round the corner. "OI! ALL-LON-ZEEEEE!"

The dazed relatives nod distantly and follow him.


Ben is awoken by a strange stretching sensation to hear the priest arguing with congregation animatedly: "No, no, you're not listening, are you? I wanted a blonde pop singer with a hint of artron energy, cause she's the chosen one! And I wanted a big fat bloke from the South, cause he's the antichrist! You've just got me a big fat blonde pop singer with a hint of artron energy! It's not the same, is it?"

Ben wails unhappily. "Oh, God, no! Has Zeno of Zenathon returned to claim the Earth?"

The priest looks at her. "The who of the what?"

"You're an alien, aren't you?" Ben accuses angrilly.

"Yeah. So... now what? You want me to explain my entire plan, the history of my people, the origin on my leather jacket to some random captive?"

"Duh!" Ben says, rolling her eyes.

"Tough."

Ben scowls. "I bet you came here on a scouting mission, found a hidden monastery and hoodwinked these people into thinking you're the son of the God!"

"A bit," the priest admits.

"You want to take over the world with their psychic power, don't you?!"

"Me?" the priest laughs. "Take over the world? Why would I want to do that? It's huge, polluted, unworkable, covered with stupid apes and as a bit of real estate, it's knackered, cause there's no one else to sell it to. Least, no one who'd pay cash for it, anyroads."

"Is your scout ship in Cardiff? Is it mowing down shoppers with laser blasts, turning chav girls into burning heaps of flaming dusts."

The priest stares at her. "No." He turns to his follows. "Chuck her into a cell, would you, someone? She's just freaking me out - and she's some stomach tumor or something. It's really gross."

Ben realizes with her usual fast thinking, realizes that her distended gut now protects two feet in all directions, and faints, being massively incontinent.

"Oh, fantastic! That'll NEVER wash out! Get her out of here, people! That stench..."


Meanwhile, Abby and Chiana are driving into Cardiff city when the mobile rings. Abby answers and gets the frantic Doctor - having FINALLY listened to Donna and actually tried to ring her rather than simply rounding up a posse to rescue her. Frankly, the Doctor's releived to have met Abby's parents under such circumstances, as they are so worried about their daughter they haven't questioned the TARDIS, time travel, or even the fact there is a larger-on-the-inside phone box that can cross the universe.

"Your mum hasn't even slapped me yet? Brilliant, eh?"

Abby insists she's perfectly all right and they dumped the incredibly swollen and gravid Ben Chatham in Shindig Valley... and hears the distinctive sound of the Doctor fainting on the other end of the phone.

"He's passed out, the big poof," Donna explains, picking up the phone. "Look, we'll meet you outside that Welsh Millennium Dome with all that rubbish graffiti about horizon stones, right? See ya, luv."


Ben awakes in a cell guarded by Katie Ryan. Furious, Ben starts to rant and rage (as usual) that Katie is not showing nearly half as much due care and consideration that she should. Katie simply sneers, "Wow! Idea of the century! Act as a maid to a Britney lookalike squatting in a burned out lab! I'm not a trainee, Ben! I have a degree of sense! And not to mention looks!"

"Not as good as mine, though," says Ben, flicking her hair arrogantly, as ever overlooking one vital fact she is now so bloated she cannot even move, and is also stuck in a dungeon by an insane religious cult. Again.

"Anyway, you HAVE to look after me and do what I say! And I need to find the Doctor so he can cure the horrible disease afflicting me!"

"You're not diseased, Ben, you're pregnant. It's this thing that happens to women, and where babies come from..."

"WHAT?!?"

"Whoops. Did you still believe in the stork?"

"I'M PREGNANT?!?"

"Well, you look like an extra in that Robbie Williams video clip, so yeah."

"HOW?!"

Katie stares at Ben. "You need a diagram?"

"BUT I HAVEN'T SLEPT WITH ANY MAN! AND FUCK KNOWS I'VE TRIED!"

Katie laughs uncomfortably and rubs her neck. "Yeah, about that... You know that sex change I performed on you back in The Incredibly Mixed-Up Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Smoothe-Chested Archaeologists?"

"That time you sewed an Italian hot dog to my nether reigons?"

"Yeah, that time."

"Oh, vaguely..."

"Well, let's just say that it ended up not so much 'botched sex change' but 'untintentional cross fertilization'. You're not following me, are you?"

"Following you? I can barely see you!"

"The father of your offspring IS that Italian hot dog."

A beat.

"That sounds a tad farfetched."

"Oh, because a 1980s Lightning Globe turning you into a debauched pop star clone, THAT is the baseline for normality?"

"But I can't be pregnant," Ben wails unhappily, despite the fact she looks she is overdue with twins. "What will happen to my sophisticated, cultural lifestyle? I can't be a single mother! My god! I'll end up like Jackie Tyler! WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?!? IT'S JUST NOT FAIR!" she wails.

There is a sudden splashing noise and Ben groans.

"Uh oh," says Katie. "Has your water just broken?"

"What water?" Ben snaps, reaching around to reveal a broken hip flast. "I just crushed my emergency absinthe supply! WHAT A FUCKING MISERABLE TURN OF EVENTS! Still," she sighs. "At least I have these opium cigarettes."

"Uh, Ben," says Katie, worried. "There's absinthe everywhere, whatever you do, don't light up that cig---"

Ben lights up.


Upstairs, the priest is brooding over the fact that after a few hours saving the Earth from rampaging window dummies with her, he's become obsessed with a blonde shop girl from a council estate. He needs to get out more, do something interesting, and not set up faux religions on the offchance he might bump into her again.

"Wait a minute," he says suddenly. "I never actually told her I had a time machine! Stupid post-regenerative amnesia. Better head back and ask her again..."

Suddenly there is a distant, muffled explosion and the church shakes.

"A sign from God!" the priest exclaims. "Sorry, my brethren, just me talking to myself again! Nothing to see here, so no one panic..." he says, sidling over to the police box acting as a confession booth. "Oh, and if anyone was wondering what the Eleventh Commandment is, it's this: whatever happens in Cardiff, STAYS in Cardiff!"

He dives inside the police box which dematerializes with a wheezing, groaning, pop culture reference.

The monks look around, wondering what to do now.

Just then the soot-blackened and singed Katie and Ben stumble out of the crypt.

The monks take one look at the huge-if-slightly-charred pregnant belly Ben possess and immediately start worshipping her. It rapidly becomes obvious they think that Ben is the reincarnation of the biblical Eve (who ditched Adam for his lack of a smoothe chest and shacked up with Satan before the whole 'chained in rock on an impossible planet surrounding a black hole' incident of 2006), the mother of all demonic power.

Realizing she now has an army of religious maniacs to follow her, Ben sits down on a pew and breaks it in half. She announces that she WILL lead the religion to wipe out the chavs, and their first baptism shall involve dousing a council estate with biological warfare!

"At last!" Ben shouts. "It's really happening! All chavs WILL die! NOTHING IN THE WORLD CAN STOP ME NOW!!!"

Suddenly, there is the sound of helicopters as UNIT troops storm the church.

"Oh, that's just fucking typical!" Ben moans.

She and the others are arrested as the Cambridge Dept of Ecology test out a new chemical weapon - Birdseye Chunky Custard - on the off chance it might cure some Asian newts. Instead, it drowns the cultists, who then start dying. As you do when you drown.

The survivors are left at the mercy as Touchwood Three arrive, mincing slightly as they've all put on each other's underwear by accident. "Sorry we came late," Jack grins, "but it's the journey, not the destination."

"Wow, something even LESS than a single entendres," Katie Ryan marvels.


Later, Ben is trapped in one of the vaults under Cardiff, too large to do anything except fold her arms and huff angrilly. Touchwood Three have placed her under lock and key at the Doctor's request while he, Donna and Abby have travelled to Mars to find out the truth of the local Sphinx, while Abby's family have gone home.

"Well, it's been an interesting day but I've gotta go," Chiana says finally, after she finally stops giggling at the ridiculously fecund Chatham. "Up early tomorrow - or maybe just stay up really late tonight. See ya?"

"You haven't been trying to hit on her have you?" scowls Katie, who is locked in the next cell.

Ben is annoyed: she is heavily pregnant, trapped in an underground vault by a bunch of incompetent nymphomaniacs who have already gotten high on retcon and forgotten she was ever imprisoned there, and worse she's stuck next to a cell with Katie Ryan with no hope of escape.

So, Ben decides take a Fox Glacier Mint to wash her troubles away. She feels her mind floating as transluscent colours swirl through her consciousness in a kaleidoscope of ambience.

Then she starts snoring.

THE END