[justprompts] - Stress
Today was obviously a Saturday.
Oh, it had started off well enough. The TARDIS had materialised on one of the Divergents' worlds, just as she had the previous worlds she'd taken the Doctor and his companions to. They appeared on a rocky outcrop about eight kilometres from the nearest inhabitants, according to her scanners, and so were free to wander as they would without fear of being arrested, held up, chased, accused of any assortment of crimes, revered or worshipped. (Though, truth be told, she wouldn't mind a bit more of the latter. About a half dozen planets ago, they'd visited a race that seemed to believe cubic objects were some sort of deity and so had showered her with praise. Well, up until the sacrificing bit. Apparently, they felt it was the only way to return the deity to the Great Cube from which it fell. She wasn't too keen on being smelted down again, and they'd fled rather quickly once it was apparent the Doctor's argument that 'Excuse me, she isn't yours to smelt down and for Rassilon's sake she isn't even a cube, at least have the decency to call her a hexahedron or something!' fell on deaf ears.)
At any rate, the outcropping itself was quiet enough, overlooking a vast field of swaying high grass and heather that was the most magnificent shade of blue. She had a fondness for blue, the Doctor's TARDIS, and knew a pleasant shade from a ghastly one like she knew the first ten thousand figures of pi - extremely well. The sky was a soft mauve, layered through with bright pinks and periwinkles, dotted here and there by white clouds and the swollen ghost of the moon hanging low on the horizon. Below the outcrop, waves crashed against a shore teeming with wildlife, all of them scrambling about as the sun began to set to the south.
The divergent universe certainly had a great deal of beauty within it. None of it could make up for the agonising lack of Time, but, on occasion, it was enough to soothe the ache, if only for a moment.
As always, the Doctor was the first to pop his head out her doors, a wide grin breaking across his features as a gust of wind caught at his curls.
'Would you look at that!' he cried, stepping out from the TARDIS, Charley and C'rizz not far behind. For his part, the Eutermesan seemed quite at home on this alien planet, crouching down to examine the rocks on which they stood. Charley surveyed their surroundings with a wary eye, taking a place beside the Doctor and crossing her arms.
'It's very … bright,' she ventured, grasping for the right words.
'Isn't it though?' the Doctor replied, taking a fantastically deep breath and giggling faintly. 'Oh, do you smell that? A little like fresh baked pie, isn't it? I always liked fresh baked pies, you know, especially out of a window. Have you ever had a fresh baked pie from the bakeries on Algernon? Well, neither have I, but I've wanted to. All those pasties lined up in windows that stretch for kilometres around, just waiting for a nibble. Did I tell you the one time I tried taking a bit from the window of the Giantess Kespia-'
'No, Doctor, you didn't,' Charley interrupted quickly, raising one hand as if her fingers could stall him. 'And you don't need to, either.'
He seemed momentarily crestfallen, but perks up quick enough, taking a step down from the outcrop to examine the grass. For a moment, he seemed to lose himself in it, brushing his fingers through the tall stalks, contemplating the blue stains they left behind, so similar to the grass on Gallifrey, running red as though soaked in the blood of its inhabitants. His eyes grew distant and the TARDIS heard his thoughts whisper through her mind, longing for something neither could have, not anymore. Charley frowned and knelt beside him, mimicking his movements.
'Doctor?' she asked softly, placing a stained hand on his arm.
The Doctor seemed not to hear her at first, then grinned at her, standing abruptly.
'So then, what shall we do, hmm?' he began, wiping his hands on a kerchief he pulled from his pockets. 'This is all rather lovely, but I want to do something. That's the whole point of travelling, to go out and do things. So, well ... how about that way, hmm? Through the grass.' He pointed with a still-stained finger toward the horizon and the unmistakable wisp of smoke curling upward into the sky. 'That looks promising.'
'Doctor, I'm not sure that's wise,' C'rizz warned, his face screwed up with concern. 'We don't know who lives there.'
'I know,' the Doctor replied in a mix of joviality and exasperation. 'That's quite the point.'
They left not long after that on their adventure, the Doctor stepping into the TARDIS one last time for a tick before hurrying back out again.
He forgot to lock her door. That should have been the first sign that something wasn't right. Saturdays always began when he forgot to lock her door.
--
Night is falling when she senses them, little men with flat, wide faces, gaping nostrils situated toward the ride of the brow their most striking feature, tiny, puckered mouth laced with sharp teeth and beady eyes the colour of cream completing their faces. They carry an array of primitive and technological weaponry, a mismatched unit of stolen items, like flat-faced pirates, clutching each weapon tightly in purplish claws as they click and chirp and wheeze at one another. One of their number, slightly taller than the rest, ventures close enough to open her doors and peek in.
She can't be certain, but she's fairly sure the creature screams, if the rapid grunting and sniffing noises it makes are any indication.
When his companions begin attacking her exterior (sigh), she rumbles out a warning to the one still lurking inside her. He stares in awe as her lights dim and a long, low groan rattles through the flooring beneath him, her central column pulsing slowly, ominously. (She never did like rapid blinking lights for a warning system. Sure, they convey a sense of urgency, but they lack a certain style, and slow and deliberate always struck her as making a bolder statement than flailing about and carrying on like a hyperactive lightbulb.)
Of course, when he jabs her console with the sharp end of his weapon, slow and deliberate isn't nearly so important as making him stop. When he pokes her again, the electrical circuit she sends through the metal filaments of his weapon make a rather impressive spark when they reach his skin. She is, admittedly, pleased. After all, he's stopped poking her.
The ones outside, however, have not. One braves to look inside her, most likely searching for his mate, and makes that same snorting and sniffling noise his companion had made earlier. Whether this one screamed because of her interior or because his comrade is lying twitching on her floor, the TARDIS can't say, but he begins snuffling and wheezing at the others with him and, a moment later, they stop their jabbing.
The second one to enter her gathers up his companion and scurries out. A moment passes, then everything begins to shake, jarring and jostling as dozens of hands begin pushing and shoving at the ship's exterior. The TARDIS begins panicking as the rocking grows worse, the ground beneath her shifting and then, suddenly, it isn't anymore. The ground gives way and the TARDIS plummets into the sea below, the little men with their flaring nostrils breathing heavily in her direction.
When she hits the water below, she knows without a doubt that today must surely be a Saturday. Bugger all this no time in the divergent universe, no days of the week, no weeks of the month, no months of the year. Today is a Saturday and she's sinking in water, her interior beginning to flood as the liquid rushes in through her open doors.
Sigh.
The scraping, metallic chink of a net on her exterior is surprising and the TARDIS scans the water for lifeforms, engines rumbling softly in the dim glow of her interior. She's halted the inrush of water by erecting a makeshift barrier in front of her doors, but she'd rather get out of the lake than remain in it much longer, making the ship above a welcome sight.
The long shadow of a fishing trolly blips across her screens, pinpricks of heat and the chattering of voices indicating life from the boat. She supposes they're surprised to have caught her, if they even know what she is, considering the darkness of the surrounding water and the significantly smaller animals trapped in the net. The shadow of the boat wavers as the vessel rocks under her weight, but the crew on board eventually drag her to the surface and over the ship's starboard, where she remains on her side, water rushing out from her interior as she lets the barrier fall.
The crew obviously wasn't expecting the sheer amount of water because they slosh through the ankle-deep liquid to slam her doors closed, six to a side, halting the deluge. The TARDIS grumbles and locks the remaining water and aquatic life in a section of her interior now labelled 'aquarium.' She'll tell the Doctor about it later. Or perhaps let Charlotte find it 'by accident' first. The girl did enjoy wandering about from time to time. It would hardly be the TARDIS' fault if Miss Pollard somehow made her way to a room the size of a small lake which was, in fact, a small lake, and got a little bit wet.
These men are just as peculiar looking as the group who dropped her into the lake, with fat, fleshy faces that seem to come straight from their shoulders, any possible neck lost in folds of skin that look the faintest bit like gills. They have no ears, just long slits to the sides of their heads, winding halfway to the back, where a pair of serrated fins flare out from their bald flesh. Wide, narrow eyes blink rapidly in her direction and webbed fingers poke and prod here and there while the crew snicks and chitters at one another. They do not seem particularly surprised by her appearance, though one of them does skitter back from the phone box on her front when it pops open and the receiver dangles out.
Sometime later, the ship makes harbour. The fish men have since turned the TARDIS upright and are carefully hauling her from the deck. They've not yet tried opening her again -- obviously for fear of being capsized should she hold any more water -- but when they hit the shore, many of the crew members gather around, touching her again. One particularly brave fellow pulls nervously at her doors, clearly uncertain as to the intelligence of opening a door that had all ready released enough water to flood his ship, but curiosity wins the day and her door creaks slowly open.
Dozens of what sound like awed gasps surround her and the TARDIS glows gently under the praising looks from those assembled.
They all clatter inside her, looking around eagerly. One or two she has to chase away from her console, and she expresses her displeasure when a group begin rummaging through the miniature library to the side of her control room. A few well-placed shocks here and there seem to keep them in line, but more keep coming and she can't stop them from scurrying into her hallways and raiding her rooms.
It is even worse when it becomes apparent they're stealing things from each of the rooms, pocketing objects and knickknacks wantonly in their coarse grey fishing gear.
When a couple of them find the Doctor's room, she feels it's time to take slightly more drastic efforts to deter them from their thievery.
Those still in her console room feel it first as the floor beneath them heats to boiling. Steam erupts from vents and grating lining the room, scalding those too close to them, scaring others. Before too long, the floor itself is too hot to remain standing on, sending the pesky things hopping about and running, until they'd vacated the premises.
Her hallways are next. The creatures trespassing through her corridors are plunged into darkness, the walls beginning to hum, then crackle, sparks flaring up along their length, spearing through the dark as each surface lights up, electricity flowing through the hallways. The fish men inside her corridors begin squealing and carrying on as the increased static contacts their dark flesh and clothes, shocking them repeatedly. It won't kill them, no, but they'll have burn marks for a few days. After subjecting them to the electrified hallway, the TARDIS stops abruptly, raising the lights, and makes an impressive boom behind each of them, herding them toward her console room and out to where their friends wait.
That leaves, of course, the few still in her bedrooms. Anti-gravity is an amazing thing, easily executed and brilliantly effective for removing unwanted persons. Each of the fish people in her rooms find themselves lifted from the ground, flipped over -- and, consequently, relieved of all the objects they'd stolen -- and carried from her interior, dropped unceremoniously on the floor just inside her entranceway. They scramble the rest of the way out, chittering angrily, but none dare re-enter the open doors.
The TARDIS releases some more steam, just for effect, and most of them scatter in terror.
She remains on the dock for several hours after that, one or two of the fish people venturing near, but never entering. The TARDIS hums quietly, despondent. The Doctor is probably looking for her right now, scouring the countryside for his precious blue box. And here she is, stranded in a village of kleptomaniacs after being tossed off a cliff by savage frog people.
She really, truly hates Saturdays.
There is a familiar tug on her senses not long after, however, and the TARDIS perks up, sending out probing fingers to latch onto the sensation, humming excitedly. The Doctor is here! He's found her! Surely he must have searched for hours, desperate to find his beloved ship, and now he's come for her! Her elation is palpable and the handful of fish people standing nearby stare in awe as her interior glows brightly in anticipation of the Doctor's return.
He appears a few short minutes later, chatting easily with Charley and C'rizz, a swagger in his step. He looks far too cheery to have been worrying over his ship and the TARDIS grows petulant, even as he comes to a halt and stares at her.
'Well hello there!' he cries, hurrying over to her and petting her exterior, tsking when her doors are open. 'What are you doing here?'
Charley comes up behind him, a quizzical expression on her face. 'I thought we left the TARDIS outside the village?' she asks. 'What's it doing here?'
The Doctor gives her a look as if to say 'Didn't I just ask that?' but is interrupted by C'rizz, his voice pressed with urgency.
'Doctor,' he hisses, bumping into the man and shaking his shoulder. 'Doctor, I think we'd best be off.'
'C'rizz, I'm really sorry, but can't you see I'm busy?' the Doctor asks, examining the TARDIS, opening and closing her door. 'Oh my, squeaky. We'll have to get that fixed, won't we, old girl?'
'Doctor!'
'What, C'rizz?' The Doctor heaves a heavy sigh and turns to the Eutermesan, then clicks his tongue. 'Oh, well. I see,' he says, fumbling with the TARDIS' door as a dozen fish men begin advancing toward him, skin puckered and blackened from where they'd been burned, each holding a rather nasty looking fishing implement. It's hard to tell, but they appear rather angry, and as the Doctor is showing obvious signs of being familiar with the frightening blue box that hurt them, he's the one most likely responsible for them being injured. As such, he must pay. 'All right, everyone, sight-seeing's over. Into the TARDIS. Now.'
Neither Charley nor C'rizz need another prompt and they scurry in under the Doctor's outstretched arm while the Time Lord gestures placatingly to the fish people.
'Well then!' he says cheerily. 'What a pleasant surprise this is, hmm? I take it you've met the TARDIS?' He pets her exterior and the fish people hoist their weapons; the Doctor takes a nervous step back. 'Right, well, I see you have. At any rate, we really must be going. Universes to explore, Divergents to defeat, that sort of thing. It really was a pleasure meeting you, honest! We must have tea sometime.'
He ducks into the TARDIS and slams the doors closed as the first spear wheezes through the air, hitting the TARDIS with a heavy thunk as she begins dematerialising with a loud groan.
Saturdays, she decides, need not exist. Ever again.
Muse: The TARDIS
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 2800
Oh, it had started off well enough. The TARDIS had materialised on one of the Divergents' worlds, just as she had the previous worlds she'd taken the Doctor and his companions to. They appeared on a rocky outcrop about eight kilometres from the nearest inhabitants, according to her scanners, and so were free to wander as they would without fear of being arrested, held up, chased, accused of any assortment of crimes, revered or worshipped. (Though, truth be told, she wouldn't mind a bit more of the latter. About a half dozen planets ago, they'd visited a race that seemed to believe cubic objects were some sort of deity and so had showered her with praise. Well, up until the sacrificing bit. Apparently, they felt it was the only way to return the deity to the Great Cube from which it fell. She wasn't too keen on being smelted down again, and they'd fled rather quickly once it was apparent the Doctor's argument that 'Excuse me, she isn't yours to smelt down and for Rassilon's sake she isn't even a cube, at least have the decency to call her a hexahedron or something!' fell on deaf ears.)
At any rate, the outcropping itself was quiet enough, overlooking a vast field of swaying high grass and heather that was the most magnificent shade of blue. She had a fondness for blue, the Doctor's TARDIS, and knew a pleasant shade from a ghastly one like she knew the first ten thousand figures of pi - extremely well. The sky was a soft mauve, layered through with bright pinks and periwinkles, dotted here and there by white clouds and the swollen ghost of the moon hanging low on the horizon. Below the outcrop, waves crashed against a shore teeming with wildlife, all of them scrambling about as the sun began to set to the south.
The divergent universe certainly had a great deal of beauty within it. None of it could make up for the agonising lack of Time, but, on occasion, it was enough to soothe the ache, if only for a moment.
As always, the Doctor was the first to pop his head out her doors, a wide grin breaking across his features as a gust of wind caught at his curls.
'Would you look at that!' he cried, stepping out from the TARDIS, Charley and C'rizz not far behind. For his part, the Eutermesan seemed quite at home on this alien planet, crouching down to examine the rocks on which they stood. Charley surveyed their surroundings with a wary eye, taking a place beside the Doctor and crossing her arms.
'It's very … bright,' she ventured, grasping for the right words.
'Isn't it though?' the Doctor replied, taking a fantastically deep breath and giggling faintly. 'Oh, do you smell that? A little like fresh baked pie, isn't it? I always liked fresh baked pies, you know, especially out of a window. Have you ever had a fresh baked pie from the bakeries on Algernon? Well, neither have I, but I've wanted to. All those pasties lined up in windows that stretch for kilometres around, just waiting for a nibble. Did I tell you the one time I tried taking a bit from the window of the Giantess Kespia-'
'No, Doctor, you didn't,' Charley interrupted quickly, raising one hand as if her fingers could stall him. 'And you don't need to, either.'
He seemed momentarily crestfallen, but perks up quick enough, taking a step down from the outcrop to examine the grass. For a moment, he seemed to lose himself in it, brushing his fingers through the tall stalks, contemplating the blue stains they left behind, so similar to the grass on Gallifrey, running red as though soaked in the blood of its inhabitants. His eyes grew distant and the TARDIS heard his thoughts whisper through her mind, longing for something neither could have, not anymore. Charley frowned and knelt beside him, mimicking his movements.
'Doctor?' she asked softly, placing a stained hand on his arm.
The Doctor seemed not to hear her at first, then grinned at her, standing abruptly.
'So then, what shall we do, hmm?' he began, wiping his hands on a kerchief he pulled from his pockets. 'This is all rather lovely, but I want to do something. That's the whole point of travelling, to go out and do things. So, well ... how about that way, hmm? Through the grass.' He pointed with a still-stained finger toward the horizon and the unmistakable wisp of smoke curling upward into the sky. 'That looks promising.'
'Doctor, I'm not sure that's wise,' C'rizz warned, his face screwed up with concern. 'We don't know who lives there.'
'I know,' the Doctor replied in a mix of joviality and exasperation. 'That's quite the point.'
They left not long after that on their adventure, the Doctor stepping into the TARDIS one last time for a tick before hurrying back out again.
He forgot to lock her door. That should have been the first sign that something wasn't right. Saturdays always began when he forgot to lock her door.
--
Night is falling when she senses them, little men with flat, wide faces, gaping nostrils situated toward the ride of the brow their most striking feature, tiny, puckered mouth laced with sharp teeth and beady eyes the colour of cream completing their faces. They carry an array of primitive and technological weaponry, a mismatched unit of stolen items, like flat-faced pirates, clutching each weapon tightly in purplish claws as they click and chirp and wheeze at one another. One of their number, slightly taller than the rest, ventures close enough to open her doors and peek in.
She can't be certain, but she's fairly sure the creature screams, if the rapid grunting and sniffing noises it makes are any indication.
When his companions begin attacking her exterior (sigh), she rumbles out a warning to the one still lurking inside her. He stares in awe as her lights dim and a long, low groan rattles through the flooring beneath him, her central column pulsing slowly, ominously. (She never did like rapid blinking lights for a warning system. Sure, they convey a sense of urgency, but they lack a certain style, and slow and deliberate always struck her as making a bolder statement than flailing about and carrying on like a hyperactive lightbulb.)
Of course, when he jabs her console with the sharp end of his weapon, slow and deliberate isn't nearly so important as making him stop. When he pokes her again, the electrical circuit she sends through the metal filaments of his weapon make a rather impressive spark when they reach his skin. She is, admittedly, pleased. After all, he's stopped poking her.
The ones outside, however, have not. One braves to look inside her, most likely searching for his mate, and makes that same snorting and sniffling noise his companion had made earlier. Whether this one screamed because of her interior or because his comrade is lying twitching on her floor, the TARDIS can't say, but he begins snuffling and wheezing at the others with him and, a moment later, they stop their jabbing.
The second one to enter her gathers up his companion and scurries out. A moment passes, then everything begins to shake, jarring and jostling as dozens of hands begin pushing and shoving at the ship's exterior. The TARDIS begins panicking as the rocking grows worse, the ground beneath her shifting and then, suddenly, it isn't anymore. The ground gives way and the TARDIS plummets into the sea below, the little men with their flaring nostrils breathing heavily in her direction.
When she hits the water below, she knows without a doubt that today must surely be a Saturday. Bugger all this no time in the divergent universe, no days of the week, no weeks of the month, no months of the year. Today is a Saturday and she's sinking in water, her interior beginning to flood as the liquid rushes in through her open doors.
Sigh.
The scraping, metallic chink of a net on her exterior is surprising and the TARDIS scans the water for lifeforms, engines rumbling softly in the dim glow of her interior. She's halted the inrush of water by erecting a makeshift barrier in front of her doors, but she'd rather get out of the lake than remain in it much longer, making the ship above a welcome sight.
The long shadow of a fishing trolly blips across her screens, pinpricks of heat and the chattering of voices indicating life from the boat. She supposes they're surprised to have caught her, if they even know what she is, considering the darkness of the surrounding water and the significantly smaller animals trapped in the net. The shadow of the boat wavers as the vessel rocks under her weight, but the crew on board eventually drag her to the surface and over the ship's starboard, where she remains on her side, water rushing out from her interior as she lets the barrier fall.
The crew obviously wasn't expecting the sheer amount of water because they slosh through the ankle-deep liquid to slam her doors closed, six to a side, halting the deluge. The TARDIS grumbles and locks the remaining water and aquatic life in a section of her interior now labelled 'aquarium.' She'll tell the Doctor about it later. Or perhaps let Charlotte find it 'by accident' first. The girl did enjoy wandering about from time to time. It would hardly be the TARDIS' fault if Miss Pollard somehow made her way to a room the size of a small lake which was, in fact, a small lake, and got a little bit wet.
These men are just as peculiar looking as the group who dropped her into the lake, with fat, fleshy faces that seem to come straight from their shoulders, any possible neck lost in folds of skin that look the faintest bit like gills. They have no ears, just long slits to the sides of their heads, winding halfway to the back, where a pair of serrated fins flare out from their bald flesh. Wide, narrow eyes blink rapidly in her direction and webbed fingers poke and prod here and there while the crew snicks and chitters at one another. They do not seem particularly surprised by her appearance, though one of them does skitter back from the phone box on her front when it pops open and the receiver dangles out.
Sometime later, the ship makes harbour. The fish men have since turned the TARDIS upright and are carefully hauling her from the deck. They've not yet tried opening her again -- obviously for fear of being capsized should she hold any more water -- but when they hit the shore, many of the crew members gather around, touching her again. One particularly brave fellow pulls nervously at her doors, clearly uncertain as to the intelligence of opening a door that had all ready released enough water to flood his ship, but curiosity wins the day and her door creaks slowly open.
Dozens of what sound like awed gasps surround her and the TARDIS glows gently under the praising looks from those assembled.
They all clatter inside her, looking around eagerly. One or two she has to chase away from her console, and she expresses her displeasure when a group begin rummaging through the miniature library to the side of her control room. A few well-placed shocks here and there seem to keep them in line, but more keep coming and she can't stop them from scurrying into her hallways and raiding her rooms.
It is even worse when it becomes apparent they're stealing things from each of the rooms, pocketing objects and knickknacks wantonly in their coarse grey fishing gear.
When a couple of them find the Doctor's room, she feels it's time to take slightly more drastic efforts to deter them from their thievery.
Those still in her console room feel it first as the floor beneath them heats to boiling. Steam erupts from vents and grating lining the room, scalding those too close to them, scaring others. Before too long, the floor itself is too hot to remain standing on, sending the pesky things hopping about and running, until they'd vacated the premises.
Her hallways are next. The creatures trespassing through her corridors are plunged into darkness, the walls beginning to hum, then crackle, sparks flaring up along their length, spearing through the dark as each surface lights up, electricity flowing through the hallways. The fish men inside her corridors begin squealing and carrying on as the increased static contacts their dark flesh and clothes, shocking them repeatedly. It won't kill them, no, but they'll have burn marks for a few days. After subjecting them to the electrified hallway, the TARDIS stops abruptly, raising the lights, and makes an impressive boom behind each of them, herding them toward her console room and out to where their friends wait.
That leaves, of course, the few still in her bedrooms. Anti-gravity is an amazing thing, easily executed and brilliantly effective for removing unwanted persons. Each of the fish people in her rooms find themselves lifted from the ground, flipped over -- and, consequently, relieved of all the objects they'd stolen -- and carried from her interior, dropped unceremoniously on the floor just inside her entranceway. They scramble the rest of the way out, chittering angrily, but none dare re-enter the open doors.
The TARDIS releases some more steam, just for effect, and most of them scatter in terror.
She remains on the dock for several hours after that, one or two of the fish people venturing near, but never entering. The TARDIS hums quietly, despondent. The Doctor is probably looking for her right now, scouring the countryside for his precious blue box. And here she is, stranded in a village of kleptomaniacs after being tossed off a cliff by savage frog people.
She really, truly hates Saturdays.
There is a familiar tug on her senses not long after, however, and the TARDIS perks up, sending out probing fingers to latch onto the sensation, humming excitedly. The Doctor is here! He's found her! Surely he must have searched for hours, desperate to find his beloved ship, and now he's come for her! Her elation is palpable and the handful of fish people standing nearby stare in awe as her interior glows brightly in anticipation of the Doctor's return.
He appears a few short minutes later, chatting easily with Charley and C'rizz, a swagger in his step. He looks far too cheery to have been worrying over his ship and the TARDIS grows petulant, even as he comes to a halt and stares at her.
'Well hello there!' he cries, hurrying over to her and petting her exterior, tsking when her doors are open. 'What are you doing here?'
Charley comes up behind him, a quizzical expression on her face. 'I thought we left the TARDIS outside the village?' she asks. 'What's it doing here?'
The Doctor gives her a look as if to say 'Didn't I just ask that?' but is interrupted by C'rizz, his voice pressed with urgency.
'Doctor,' he hisses, bumping into the man and shaking his shoulder. 'Doctor, I think we'd best be off.'
'C'rizz, I'm really sorry, but can't you see I'm busy?' the Doctor asks, examining the TARDIS, opening and closing her door. 'Oh my, squeaky. We'll have to get that fixed, won't we, old girl?'
'Doctor!'
'What, C'rizz?' The Doctor heaves a heavy sigh and turns to the Eutermesan, then clicks his tongue. 'Oh, well. I see,' he says, fumbling with the TARDIS' door as a dozen fish men begin advancing toward him, skin puckered and blackened from where they'd been burned, each holding a rather nasty looking fishing implement. It's hard to tell, but they appear rather angry, and as the Doctor is showing obvious signs of being familiar with the frightening blue box that hurt them, he's the one most likely responsible for them being injured. As such, he must pay. 'All right, everyone, sight-seeing's over. Into the TARDIS. Now.'
Neither Charley nor C'rizz need another prompt and they scurry in under the Doctor's outstretched arm while the Time Lord gestures placatingly to the fish people.
'Well then!' he says cheerily. 'What a pleasant surprise this is, hmm? I take it you've met the TARDIS?' He pets her exterior and the fish people hoist their weapons; the Doctor takes a nervous step back. 'Right, well, I see you have. At any rate, we really must be going. Universes to explore, Divergents to defeat, that sort of thing. It really was a pleasure meeting you, honest! We must have tea sometime.'
He ducks into the TARDIS and slams the doors closed as the first spear wheezes through the air, hitting the TARDIS with a heavy thunk as she begins dematerialising with a loud groan.
Saturdays, she decides, need not exist. Ever again.
Muse: The TARDIS
Fandom: Doctor Who
Word Count: 2800