Title: Invitation to the Dance
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Captain Yates, mentions of others including Third Doctor, Jo Grant
Content notes: no warnings apply
Length: 200 words
Author note: inspired by the end of The Daemons (1971), which I've just rewatched for the first time since childhood; this one is for kalypso.
Summary: Flowers and birdsong, morris dancers and a maypole on the green.




Flowers and birdsong, morris dancers and a maypole on the green. It looks just like an advertisement for the English Tourist Board, except for the smoking ruins of the village church. What with that and the UNIT helicopter blown up by the alien force field around Devil's End, it's been an expensive May Day so far.

Poor Sergeant Benton gets dragged into the maypole dancing by the local white witch, Miss Hawthorne. The Doctor barely has time to laugh before Miss Grant pulls him into the dance as well, leaving only the Brigadier and Captain Yates looking on.

"Fancy a dance, Brigadier?" Yates asks.

Looks as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, cheeky young pup.

"It's kind of you, Captain Yates," the Brigadier says drily. "I think I'd rather have a pint."

Yates laughs, and they head for the Cloven Hoof, order restored.

Years later, at his daughter's school production of Twelfth Night, the Brigadier remembers that day on the green. There isn't a maypole in sight, but something about the man who stands apart, watching the dancers, reminds him of Mike Yates.

Fancy a dance, Brigadier?

It was a joke, of course. What else could it have been?


***

Endnote: additional inspiration (possibly misremembered) from the RSC's 1974/5 production of Twelfth Night; the man who doesn't join in the dance at the end is Antonio.