Ember
Title: Ember
Rating: G --Maybe PG for the very easily frightened
Characters: Alex Caron (OC), Ten
Word count: About 2000
Summary: Alex, confined for her own safety to the Tardis, does a little exploring.
Disclaimer: Thanks to the BBC for failing to stop the fun...
Warnings: still noobish, gratuitous clutter, gratuitous kittens.
Author's Note: I have often wanted to do a story set entirely inside the Tardis.
She'd been in the Tardis for a week--she thought--it was unclear to her how long she'd slept in the infirmary those first couple of days, waking only to go the bathroom. The doctor went about his business, and she tried not to bother him too much. She didn't have that much experience with adult men--to the extent that the Doctor fit either category, given that he was an alien, after all. Her Dad was on the introverted side, easily annoyed by his hyperactive daughter, and she had learned to let him be unless he approached first. So she'd mostly let the Doctor be.
She was a little afraid of him.
The Tardis was OK. Lonely, but the last three months had given her an appreciation for lonely. She didn't feel sick all the time anymore, and the bruises on her arms and legs were starting to heal now that she didn't fall down every few minutes. The throbbing behind her eyes that had been her constant companion for months was fading too, leaving her feeling lighter, as though her head were a helium balloon. The featureless brightness of the Doctor was always there, perceptible even through the interior walls of the ship, though muted by the ever present diffuse glow of the Tardis itself. It talks to him, she thought. I wonder if it will ever talk to me?
She'd picked out a room, decorated it with salvage from the Tardis' astonishing number of closets, and found, wonder of wonders, a functioning internet connection. She had tried, just for fun, putting her own name into the search engine, but a pop up had informed her that the search term had been blocked to prevent "spoilers". Same with most of Earth's future history. In fact, about half of the sites and entries she'd looked up were blocked, even when she deliberately tried to avoid tripping the system. Frustrated, she had gone off in search of print, and had found what might be called a library, though the books weren't exactly organized.
For the moment, she was sprawled across her bed with her latest find. Alex memorized her page number, then flipped to the front of the copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court she had been reading. It was a first edition, signed by the author. "To the Doctor, with gratitude. Mark Twain."
She left the book on the bed, feeling antsy. Today, she decided, she would see just how big the Tardis was. She grabbed an over the shoulder bag and an electronic journal she'd found in a big box of identical such journals in a room mostly filled with just boots, slipped her feet into her sneakers, and set off down the hallway.
Three hours later she was still encountering new rooms. She had found three more rooms not unlike the control room by the door, rooms full of equipment of uncertain function she chose to be smart enough not to touch, and rooms standing empty. And mice. Or at least, their pungent little nests and tiny black calling cards.
She was just beginning to entertain the possibility that the Tardis was actually infinite in extent when she heard a sudden, scrabbling noise, unnaturally loud in the silent hallway. Alex let out a little shriek, dropping the little journal, which clattered to the floor. The scrabbling returned for long moments, as though there were something scrambling behind the walls, then stopped.
It was too big to be a mouse.
Even if the Doctor knew where she was...wait a minute. If she always knew where he was, he must know where she was as well. Even so, he wouldn't be able to get to her quickly. Did he keep monsters in here? Sea monsters maybe, in one of the artificial ponds she'd seen an hour ago? Was it possible he'd neglected to mention other passengers on this ship of his, passengers who might have a taste for little girls?
It really was quite dark down here. She looked around for something she might be able to use as a weapon. This part of the Tardis was full of clutter, stored in plastic crates, sea chests, cardboard boxes, and uncontained, but at least neatly sorted, piles. There was a flat wooden thing on the floor. She picked it up. It was a bit heavy for her to swing easily, about the size of a baseball bat, but flattened, rather than rounded at the business end. A cricket bat?
It wasn't a light saber, but it would have to do.
Alex stepped forward, slowly, picking her way between the boxes and piles. She stopped every four or five steps, held still, and listened for the sound. Rapid scuttling, the clicking of claws. To her right, in front of her...or was it over her head? And then down and to her left. The echoes in this place!
She took another few steps, heart pounding in her chest. The shadows around her twisted and moved in front of her. There was a loud hollow clatter in front of her and she jumped back, tripping over a crate of something that crackled like crepe and collapsed underneath her, jacknifing her knees to her chest so her feet stuck up comically in front of her face. She held up the bat in defense against...what?
It was silent again. Alex wriggled free of the crate and got to her knees. In front of her, half on the ground, half propped on an ancient leather chest, lay the sinuous form of a broken coat rack. She stifled a hysterical giggle. Something was still out there. An alive something.
She rested the cricket bat across her knees. The Tardis wouldn't let anything dangerous live inside it, would it? Maybe the thing wasn't dangerous. Funny, she hadn't noticed any menacing great intelligence moving around her. There were no glowing holes in the fabric of her personal universe...but maybe, just a little thing. A little something. It felt like a hunter. Felt like a knot of intention, afraid a little maybe, curious maybe, definitely...familiar.
The Doctor was closer now and on a different bearing. She ignored him for the present. What was that little thing..."Kitty? Here kitty kitty..." She set down the cricket bat. S'all right, kitty, I'm not a threat."
Too bad she didn't have any tuna on her. Not generally the sort of thing she tended to carry, exploring. She sat down, crosslegged on the floor, and tried to look uninterested. A warbled, "Mrow?" questioned from somewhere in front of her. She sat still.
The tortoiseshell appeared by degrees, nose first, then a paw, then her long, orange and charcoal body. It was a people cat, for all its being alone down here. It gingerly set a paw on her knee. She thought about that shield she was supposed to keep up, imagined its pattern into place, though she wasn't so sure she had to be that careful about a cat. The Doctor was very close now.
She looked around her, embarrassed by her predicament and the mess. The cat crawled onto her lap. She brushed foam peanuts out of her hair and arranged herself into a pose of innocent nonchalance.
He rounded the corner, eyes still wide, breathing still a little fast. He had run. He'd run all the way here, just because she'd gotten scared by a cat and a coat rack. Alex put on her best innocent smile. "I like your cat. What's her name?"
He stared, for a long moment, unblinking. "I have a cat?"
She scratched the cat around its ears, hoping it would stay a while. It had been so long since she'd held something warm and soft and alive. Or been held. "So I take it she doesn't have a name."
The Doctor folded himself awkwardly up so he fit beside her, in the space between the boxes. "No, no name. She must have slipped in the door of the Tardis some time when it was open."
"She needs a name, then." The cat's charcoal coat, shot with orange and a lighter gray, reminded her of the embers in a fireplace. "What do you think of Ember? For a name, I mean."
"I think it quite suits her." He smiled, belatedly. "What are you doing all the way down here?" It was another one of those attempts to sound parental. She ignored it.
They were interrupted by the faint sound of squeaking in a box behind the Doctor. He turned, still seated, to push aside a faded blanket and look inside. "Oh, come look, Alex."
Alex scooped up Ember and shuffled over to the opposite side of the box. The cat squirmed free of her arms to watch the two of them warily, rubbing the full length of her body and tail possessively around the box. Alex peered inside. Three kittens of the wobbly and wide eyed variety stared up at them, mewing. "They're so adorable," she said. "We probably should leave them be, though. They're pretty little."
"What is the mother eating?" The Doctor wondered aloud.
Alex stood to brush herself off. "Mice."
"I have mice too?" He didn't sound quite as thrilled as he had about the cat.
She made a face. "Yeah. I'm sorry I dragged you down here. I know you're probably really busy doing whatever it is you do. What do you do, anyway?" Do aliens have jobs?
He shrugged. "Travel in space and time. Save the world."
"Which world?"
"All of them." Tension stole back into his face, faint lines around the eyes and mouth.
"That's a big job." She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold. "And all those worlds out there not getting saved because you have to babysit."
"It doesn't work like that. We're not quite in time right now. So far as I know, no worlds are ending because of you being here."
Alex decided to change the subject. "Can I go outside yet?"
"Look at me," the Doctor said. She obeyed, pushing down a twinge of fear she hadn't been expecting, then feeling stupid about it. The was the briefest moment of pressure behind her eyes, so quick she wasn't sure she hadn't imagined it. "Shield looks...barely adequate. But there's not much opportunity to practice inside the Tardis. How's your head?"
"Better I guess. I still forget the words for things sometimes. And I can't write neatly. My hands don't remember how to make the letters. But I don't hurt anymore."
"And are you eating?"
At the mention of food, she flipped open her bag and pulled out a pair of Twinkies. She laughed. "I'm always hungry now." She tossed him the bag after a couple of attempts to bite it open. "Apparently I don't remember how to open packages anymore either."
He examined the little yellow cakes dubiously. "I'm not sure these things qualify as food," he said, but he did tear the bag open and toss them back to her.
"I'm not either." She stuffed one in her mouth anyway. Once she'd gotten it down, she repeated, "So can I go outside?"
He instantly brightened, and she realized, all at once, that he had been feeling cooped up, at least as much as she had. "Where would you like to go?"
"Oh another planet, definitely. The weirder the better."
"One weird planet, coming up!" And he was off so fast she had to run to keep up.