This story is meant as a continuation of Theatre of Nightmares, and will make slightly more sense if you read it first... slightly.

Suffice to say, it's silly, but I hope you'll also find it funny and sweet, and perhaps an interesting treatise on culture and the nature love. No, wait, that's pretentious. Just laugh and squee and remember the times!

I must disclaim here that most of the pop culture stuff I bring in is based on American pop culture in the 1980s, and I know that the landscape in Britain was different at that time (as it is now). But who's to say they're in Britain? It's a non-existent punishment universe, and perhaps the punishment is having to deal with American pop culture at that time! Certainly the clothes...

And of course, credit where credit is due: Songwriters Carnie Wilson, Wendy Wilson, Chynna Phillips, Deborah Gibson, Marta Marrero, Michael Jay, Stephen Bray, Madonna, Janet Jackson, James Harris III and Terry Lewis. (And I know one of those songs came out in 1990, but it seemed to fit so well... and it was so close!)

"So this is me, getting out. So this is me, getting out. So this is me, getting out."

"Argh! Stop it!" the Doctor cried out, sitting bolt upright in bed, two nights after Martha Jones had left the TARDIS.

For the second night in a row, his sleep had been plagued by her very pretty face, and her voice repeating the words she had said, the ones that had meant she would be extracting herself from a situation that was making her miserable; namely, living with him.

She had told the story of her friend Vicky, and Vicky's clueless blundering flatmate whom she'd loved and who had never really noticed. And then, in a blinding flash of blimey, I've been a prat going through the Doctor's head, she had likened herself to Vicky. The Doctor had then realised that the story did, indeed, have a point, and where that point was, and it had broken his hearts. And it was all his own damn fault.

In that moment, he'd have loved to have said something, but his first instinct was to vomit his Rose-related angst all over her and make excuses. He was fairly certain that she bloody well didn't want to hear any of that, so he'd held back from saying anything at all.

He would have loved to say a million things that would… what? Make her stay? Make her feel better? Make him feel better? Make himself love her like she loved him? Make her stop loving him?

The words didn't exist. He'd known it then, just as well as he knew it now. So he had let her go.

And since he had, something had been tugging at him. Actually, several things. But he hadn't had time to delineate them all…

Suddenly, he felt his body removed from the bed and his face being pulled into some kind of swirling wind. His shoulders, arms, torso, hips and feet followed, and for a few moments, he seemed to be one with the air. He was being pulled at an extraordinary speed across a short leg of space, and then down upon one of the moons of Ennogra. The same process brought him back to himself, only in reverse. First his bare, fresh-out-of-bed feet were solid on the floor, then legs, then hips, then torso, then arms, shoulder and head.

When he found that he was matter again, he swooned and stepped to the right to grab onto a wall. He fought the urge to throw up.

When he was ready to open his eyes again, and had adjusted to the musty, sulfuric smell, he said to himself, "Oh, lovely. Another sewer. In my pyjamas, this time. Well, could have been worse, I suppose."

"So, I had heard correctly, Doctor," a voice slithered from somewhere in the gloom. "Always finds the good in everything. Well, almost everything."

"Oh, even better," he said so he could be heard. "Another shadowy, scary thing that knows my name. Do you also have fangs? Doesn't count if you don't have fangs."

A giant blue creature stepped into the light. It was, the Doctor guessed, eight feet tall, just as wide and had the build of a misshapen sofa throw pillow. Its single eye glistened with disease and crust, and from its mouth hung two gigantic fangs, dripping with saliva.

"Fangs! I knew it!" he exclaimed, jumping up, and landing on concrete in his bare feet. "Ha! Brilliant. Now who the hell are you?"

"No one to be trifled with," said the thing.

"I think you'll find that the correct phrasing is, no one with whom to be trifled," said the Doctor. "English isn't your first language, I can see that. No matter – it's a common error. You'll get better with time."

"Silence!" said the thing.

The Doctor, uncharacteristically, remained silent. He raised his eyebrows in wonder.

"Thank you," it said. "I am S'dromer."

When the creature did not elaborate, the Doctor said, "And that means what to me?"

"I am the Detonator of Regret. You have met my sibling, Ramechac, the Purveyor of Nightmares."

"Fan-bloody-tastic," the Doctor said, his voice resonating angrily against the walls of the grey, dank space. "So, what, he was busy this week, so he called up his brother to torture me?"

There was a long, pregnant pause. And then S'dromer said, "How dare you, foolish man! I am the sister of Ramechac!"

"Whoa!" the Doctor exclaimed, hands in the air in a disarmed fashion. "Sorry. Didn't realise. You know, you might want to… I don't know, wear a bow on your head or something. Anything. Honestly, for us humanoids, it's really hard to tell!"

"Silence! You have offended the Detonator of Regret!"

"Yes, I can see that."

"You have been a fool."

"Again, I can see that."

"I was having my vengeance upon you in your sleep, and it was working," said S'dromer. "I brought you here to offer you a way out. But now, I think I shall do my worst upon you, Doctor!"

"Why? Who sent you?"

"I work on behalf of many."

"What does that mean?"

She ignored his question. "You're a time traveller, you can see the horror in being dumped into the wrong time period, not knowing the way out. Oh, the tears and recriminations you shall suffer in the ugliness of these ages! And I give you only this, as a guide, Doctor: If you wish to find your self, find your way out, know that the queens of this era have a way of really cutting through the bullshit."

The Doctor actually chuckled a bit. "That is your clue of guidance? Your cryptic and wiser-than-thou comment that will take me through a search of my soul, and therefore, out of the Dark Ages or whatever?"

"For God's sake, shut up, and prepare to meet my fury!"

The last thing the Doctor heard before being whisked away, face, head, shoulders, arms, torso, hips, thighs, knees, calves, and feet, was S'dromer's evil, high-pitched laugh, taking clear glee in whatever torture she was about to reign down upon him.

When he stopped being pulled through the keyhole of time and space, he landed in a room where about a dozen other people sat, sipping from styrofoam cups. On his right, there was a coffee and tea machine and some magazines, and on his left, there was an institutional-looking door. Outside the door, there was some sort of mild chaos happening. From the looks of it, it wasn't a coffee shop, but more like the break room of some type of work place. He had a red pen in his right hand, and sitting in front of him was a stack of hand-written papers. The one on top said, "Shakespeare's Sonnets: Irrelevant to the Reagan/Thatcher era, by Heather Fontaine." Someone had already made quite a few corrections to the writing.

In addition, the Doctor saw that he was no longer wearing his pyjamas, nor was he wearing his own pin-striped suit. He seemed to be dressed in a grey wool blazer with the cuffs rolled up to mid-way between his wrist and elbow. He was wearing a white dress shirt, black trousers, and around his neck there was a navy blue knit tie that was maybe as wide as two of his fingers.

"Blimey," he mumbled to himself. "That bloody succubus dumped me in the 1980's!"

"Pardon?" someone said from another table, slightly to his right.

He looked up, and found Martha Jones staring back at him. He could feel his face lighting up, and he opened his mouth to say hello, and wanted to jump up to give her a hug, but the look on her face was all business, and he had to remind himself that wherever he was, she probably didn't know him.

"Nothing, sorry," he said. She smiled and went back to her work and her tea. He tried to study her without making her nervous. She was wearing a blue blazer with shoulder pads, and a lighter blue blouse buttoned all the way up. Her hair was pulled over to one side and entirely fastened behind one ear with a blue scrunchy, and her bangs were poufy like a poodle. Her earrings were appallingly large, and her lipstick appallingly pink.

She caught him. She looked up and smiled once again. "What?"

"Sorry," he said. "What are you working on?"

"Not killing myself," she said.

"Excuse me?"

"Sorry, bad joke. I'm just grading some blood labs," she mused, looking annoyed. "But they're a joke. You spoon-feed them the punnett squares, you give them the lab procedure, you discuss the conclusion of the experiment, and all they can come up with for their write-up is blue eyes are recessive. God, get me out of here."

"Oh, you're a biology teacher," he said.

"Yep. What about you? You're new, yeah?"

"Erm, yeah," he said, looking down at the stack of papers in front of him. "Looks like… English. Probably."

She chuckled. "How long have you been doing it?"

"Oh, really not long."

"Me neither," she said. "But between you and me, it's been long enough. I need to get out."

A chill ran up his spine.

Just then, the voice of a youngster came over the loudspeaker. "Good afternoon Merryvale, this is Corbin Lovelace, coming to you live on this lovely Tuesday afternoon! I'll be with you for the next forty-five minutes, playing the greatest and latest hits, and yes, I do take requests! Just knock on the door to room 4B beside Mr. Yoxall's office, and my lovely assistant Gretchen will be glad to take down the name of your favouritest tune! To get us started, ladies and gents, here's the latest from everyone's favourite trio, Wilson Phillips!"

While the illustrious Mr. Lovelace was talking, the voices of some women singing a capella had come in, and he talked over them. But then, once the kid finished his intro, the Doctor could clearly hear the singing.

"Oh, I love this song," the pretty biology teacher said to him. She put down her pencil, picked up her tea in both hands, and seemed to stare at the speaker as she listened.

And while she watched the music, he watched her.

How many times have I tried to turn this love around?

I don't want to give up, but baby it's time I had two feet on the ground!

Can you release me? Can you release me?

Now that you're gone I can't help myself from wondering

If you'd have come down from your high, would we have been all right?

Release me! Can you release me?

Come on baby, come on baby

You knew it was time to just let go, 'cause we want to be free

But somehow it's just not that easy

Come on darling, hear me darling!

'Cause you're a waste of time for me.

I'm trying to make you see that baby, you've just got to release me!

Release me! Release me!

I'm not going back to you anymore

Finally my weakened heart is healing, but very slow.

So stop coming round my door, 'cause you're not going to find what you're looking for.

Come on baby, come on baby

You knew it was time to just let go, 'cause we want to be free

But somehow it's just not that easy

Oh, oh, oh baby, come on darling, hear me darling!

'Cause you're a waste of time for me.

I'm trying to make you see that baby, you've just got to release me!

Release me! Release me!

Now tell me, what is this power you've got?

With that line, expressing the question, "What is this power you've got?" the Doctor was pulled tightly and dizzily through another tube of time and space. When he stopped moving, he hadn't stopped moving, oddly enough, and he almost landed on a flat blue surface, on his face.

But it wasn't as though he'd never roller skated before, and he caught himself against a red carpeted wall, managing not to tumble to his death or make a spectacle of himself. He found his footing, and skated for a few moments before taking in his surroundings. A pulsing beat was playing, and some globular lights overhead were alternating between shades of pink, purple and blue. Most of the people around him were, he guessed, between fifteen and twenty, and what stood out most was the girls' poufy hair. He had rarely seen so many wedge-style perms in one room.

And the moment he dreaded came, the moment when he couldn't help but look down at his attire.

"Oh, for the love of…" he whined when he saw what he was wearing. Jeans of a style and fit that left very little to the imagination, dyed to look like blue and white marble, and a matching jacket. His tee-shirt had a hot pink smiley-face on it.

A familiar voice came over the announcing system as the generic 80's pop tune came to an end. He was not surprised to hear Martha's voice. Across the room, behind a pane of glass, he could see her speaking into the microphone. A disco ball replaced the rounded pastel lights above, and the room began, almost literally, to spin. He heard a slow, sweet little keyboard riff take over the background behind her voice, followed by a hard-core 80's saxophone riff.

"Now, let's slow it down just a bit," she said. "Grab onto someone special, and never let them go. Because as the song says, you may never be able to love again, once you walk away."

People all over the rink coupled up. The singer came in then, one of those teen queen pop sensations with a sweet voice and little staying-power…

There was a time when broken hearts and broken dreams were over.

There was a place where all you could do was wish on a four-leaf clover.

But now, it's a new time, there is a new place where dreams just can't come true…

It started the day when I left you.

I could never love again the way I loved you.

I could never cry again like I did when I left you.

And when we said goodbye,

The look in your eye just left me beside myself without your heart

I could never love again, now that we're apart!

Across the skating rink, he could see that the girl behind the glass had joined the skaters and was smoothly gliding round the circle, her eyes sadly cast to the floor. After encouraging everyone else to grab onto someone, only she, and he, rolled anti-clockwise over and over with no partner.

When I was sorry, it was too late to turn around and tell you so.

There was no reason… there was no reason!

Just a foolish beat of my heart

I could never love again the way I loved you.

I could never cry again like I did when I left you.

And when we said goodbye,

The look in your eye just left me beside myself without your heart

I could never love again, now that we're apart!

Can't you see I'm not fooling nobody?

Don't you see the tears are falling down my face…

The Doctor was getting ready to break the rules by skating across the centre of the rink to find her. He was rehearsing what he'd say to her, and wondering whether he'd be able to skate backwards and talk at the same time…

And then his skates seemed to lift him off the floor. He swore as he was taken into another veritable hose of non-matter and spat out the other end.

This time, the music was considerably louder, the company was older and seamier, and the air was saturated with various types of smoke, both legal and illegal. All round him, people were bumping and grinding to the music, basically miming what they'd like to do to each other if there weren't all these bloody people around.

He caught a glimpse of himself in a mirror for about two seconds. He saw a turquoise double-breasted suit and a bolo tie. That's all he needed to know about that…

And in nine hundred years of travelling through time and space, very few things could surprise him as much as the horrors that some beings in this universe were willing to inflict upon their own bodies, just for the thrill. Of course, the Doctor was no hermit, but risking life and limb in the time vortex was one thing. Poisoning your body with cocaine was another. And yet several men standing near him were doing just that.

He tried to blend in and sway with the beat, while in front of him he could see the backs of two guys in nearly identical red suits, both pouring meticulous lines of cocaine over the backs of their hands. The one on his left snorted a line and then moved so that the Doctor could see he was with a girl. The girl had blonde hair that looked as though she styled it by putting her finger in an electrical socket, and a body type that made your average green bean look like a pot roast. Her makeup was thick black and royal blue round her eyes, and shockingly red round her lips. The guy on the left reached out and held her head with one hand, and she sniffed the other line of cocaine off the other hand. The two grabbed onto each other and dry-humped to the song, coming to an end now.

The guy on the right went through very much the same ritual, only when he moved, the girl he was with, the Doctor could see, was a very tiny Martha, looking terrified. The guy took her head with one hand, only to have Martha respond with, "No, no, thanks, I don't want to."

A child-like chorus of voices came on just then.

Step by step, heart to heart, left right left, we all fall down like toy soldiers!

The guy shouted some kind of half-encouragement, half-threat at her, and she still refused. When she said no a third time, and jerked to the side and back with her head and actually tried to push him away, the guy grabbed her upper arm in a way that even the Doctor could tell would bruise. Quickly, she seemed to search the vicinity with her eyes, looking for a way out, looking for help, any alternative to getting dragged to the back of the club and forced into…

For a split second, she and the Doctor made eye contact, and as the guy moved to take her away, the Doctor reached out and grabbed her other arm. Her hand grasped what she could of the fabric of his hideous jacket, and the big guy in red seemed to disappear into the crowd.

"Fancy a dance?" he asked.

Looking unbelievably relieved, she nodded and leaned her head against his chest. The two of them swayed subtly in the crowd, and the words reached their ears:

It wasn't my intention to mislead you

It never should have been this way

What can I say?

It's true I did extend the invitation

I never knew how long you'd stay

When you hear temptation call

It's your heart that takes the fall

And as he felt this beautiful, trembling creature in his arms, listened to the song that spoke his mind, suddenly, he completely understood the detonation of regret.

Step by step, heart to heart, left right left, we all fall down like toy soldiers!

Bit by bit torn apart, we never win but the battle wages on for toy soldiers!

It's getting hard to wake up in the morning

My head is spinning constantly

How can it be?

How could I be so blind to this addiction?

If I don't stop, the next one is going to be me

Only emptiness remains

It replaces all the pain…

How could he tell her how he felt? Was he even sure how he felt? This experience had set off a veritable explosion of revelation, emotion and remorse. How could he even begin to express what that was doing to him, what it meant to him, what it meant for them…

And then he knew. He pulled back from her and stared into her eyes. For the first time since this whole debacle began, she seemed to know him.

"Doctor," she whispered.

He leaned down to kiss her, and she tilted her head up to meet the kiss.

And he wasn't sure why he was surprised, but before her soft, supple lips could meet his, he was being sucked again, through a straw or a pipe or whatever, and going splat in a much less stylish room, with much less stylish people. The place was surrounded by mirrors, so he couldn't not see himself dressed from head to toe in shiny black spandex, except for the bouncy white high-top Reebox on his feet. The phrase please kill me came to mind. The big blue and pink sign across the mirrors in the back said Jazzercize! and every single person in the room was a middle-aged woman. Except for the six-foot-five, muscle-bound Greek god standing next to him, speaking to the ladies in his deep, gravelly drawl.

He had no idea what the guy was even saying; he was scanning the room for Martha. He was bitterly disappointed that he hadn't got to complete the kiss. I'm not that keen on having her see me dressed like this, but when you're in…

Whoa. What was that? When you're in what, Doctor?

A door in the back of the room opened. Martha came in with a rucksack, and she was decked out in purple leggings, black leg-warmers and a white sweatshirt with a giant boat-neck that slipped to one side and revealed one caramel-coloured shoulder. She sat down on a bench at the side of the room, presumably to wait for this class to finish and hers to start. He almost called out her name…

But suddenly, there was machine-gun like music playing and another pop queen's voice came through the speakers. A lesser-known song from a well-known album played, and Madonna's voice sang to the class. And for some reason, the Doctor knew all the same steps the giant bloke next to him seemed to know, and together, they guided the Jazzercize class through its routine. It was like some unseen force was possessing him to do these moves, and he felt like a complete arse.

You, you make my life much brighter, you're always on my mind!

You, you make my load much lighter – true love is hard to find.

Sometimes I feel I have to get away

I change my mind when I look in your eyes

And when those clouds come in and try to darken our day

Martha seemed then to realise she'd forgotten something, and she left the room. He reached out, defying the lockstep routine and temporarily confusing some of the Jazzercize students, who where intently watching his movements.

I'll always want you to stay! Stay, darling!

Stay, stay darling!

You know you've got to stay, stay, darling!

You saw through my lies and deception, yeah, I was losing my way.

You, you gave my life some direction and now I'm ready to say:

I know there's bound to be some hard times ahead

I'd be a fool to believe

But if you go I'd rather think of dying instead

I never want you to leave! Stay, darling!

The Doctor looked around the room and saw twenty-five faces, all of which were empty, glazed-over, exhausted by the exercise of life. The light in the room had gone grey, and made the whole experience feel dead and cold. Only when Martha had been in the room in her purple leggings had anything about the room felt alive, vibrant…

"Martha!" he called out. He ran in his Reeboks toward the door through which he'd seen her disappear, and he found himself standing in front of a crowd, applauding like mad.

"Ladies and gentlemen, here, in the flesh, is our friend the Doctor, back on Solid Gold by popular demand to perform one of the hits of the current reigning queen of R&B! Take it away Doctor!"

A chorus of voices sang a simple descending melody on "oooh," followed by a smooth, sultry soft rock intro, courtesy of late 1980's studio technology. He held a microphone in both hands, and looked down at his outfit. He was wearing, to his surprise, a brown suit with blue pin-stripes and Converse trainers. And when the voice rang out over the crowd, the Janet Jackson song that everyone knew was coming, he was also surprised to hear his own voice.

Looking through my old drawer, came across the letter you wrote

You said you need time away, but that was so long ago

All my life I've waited to see your smile again

In my mind, I've hated, not able to let go

The Doctor looked into the front row, and there was Martha, smiling back at him. In his own voice, dressed in his own clothes, he was the Doctor. He was not some puppet of S'dromer, or a performer, or some character in a nightmarish farce. He was him, and he was asking:

Come back to me, I'm begging you, please…come back to me!

I want you to come back to me…

Martha stood up and slowly made her way to the end of the aisle and up the stairs to the stage as he sang:

Lord knows that I have tried to live my life as one

Friends tell me to hold on, tough times don't last for long

My abandoned heart just doesn't understand

My undying love for you won't let me wait

She was smiling very slightly, approaching him. Finally, she reached him and took his hand and he sang directly to her:

Come back to me, I'm begging you, please…come back to me!

I want you to come back to me…

He stopped singing, the music kept playing, and Martha said, "Do you get it now?"

He smiled. "I get it now."

He leaned down one more time to kiss her, but she pulled back and placed two fingers gently on his lips. "No. Not here. Not now."

And she melted away, and the Doctor found himself back in the TARDIS, in his pyjamas, where he'd been when S'dromer had kidnapped him. Somehow, Martha's old mobile phone was in his hand, and certainly her voice and lips were on his mind.

Again, bitterly disappointed at the lack of closure on that kiss, he dialled hastily. She answered groggily, without saying hello.

"Doctor, I know that you don't exactly live on Greenwich Mean Time, but isn't there some instrument in that magnificent ship that will let you know it's three in the morning in London?"

"Martha, who were the pop queens of the 80's? Name a few."

A long pause. "Are you kidding me?"

"Madonna, Debbie Gibson, Janet Jackson… you know, they really have a way of cutting through the bullshit."

"Unlike you. Please tell me one of them is taking over the Earth. That's the only excuse I'll accept."

"No, but I have a story for you, and it has a really nice ending."