Missing, Part One: Business as Usual was a short story published in PROSE: More Short Trips. As of 2012, it was one of only two professionally published Melanie Bush-only stories. It detailed how Mel returned to Pease Pottage after her adventures with the Doctor and Sabalom Glitz. The name Business as Usual was a play on author Gary Russell's novel Business Unusual, which gave the account of Mel's original departure from Pease Pottage with the Sixth Doctor.

It was followed, in the same volume, by Missing, Part Two: Message in a Bottle.

Summary Edit

Mel meets Detective Inspector Bob Lines at a cafe in Brighton. She has just returned to Earth after years of time travel with the Doctor. She wonders if her parents will welcome her home. She also realises that travel with the Doctor is a diversion, and that people are the same everywhere, "the good, the bad, and the downright ugly". Lines assures her that her parents missed her and will be glad to have her back home. He offers to bring her home. Mel says she has no regrets but wouldn't do it again.

Characters Edit

• Melanie Bush
• Bob Lines

References Edit

• Mel's birthday is on 22 July while her father's is on 24 July.
• Whenever the Doctor and Mel visited Earth between 1989 and the end of the 20th century, she sent postcards to her parents in Pease Pottage.
• The Doctor and Mel encountered the Stalagtrons in New York City in 1990.

Notes Edit

to be added

Continuity Edit

• Mel mentions Trey Korte (PROSE: Instruments of Darkness) and SenéNet. (PROSE: Business Unusual)