TARDIS Spring Cleaning (after Darksoul possession/Jamie-talk)

[makeherblue]

Several days after being possessed and the Doctor’s convinced he needs to do some spring cleaning. Or at least some kind of cleaning. Probably should have done it awhile ago, come to think of it, but things kept coming up. Things do that, so he doesn’t blame them. So, spring cleaning. Needs doing, established that, good as a distraction except….

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[flawlessgenes]

Normally, it was Shepard who volunteered to help strangers and when Miranda been approached she almost said no. But then she remembered Shepard telling her to make nice and be friendly and this Doctor fellow seemed safe enough. So she said yes to the slightly odd man with the bow tie.

Upon seeing the TARDIS she raised an eyebrow, "It's rather small..." She hesitated, realizing that her statement could be seen as tactless and impolite, she would need to correct that. "Cozy, I suppose," she added.

She couldn't imagine this task taking any more than two hours considering she was staring at a box.

Box-duty outside the TARDIS

[makeherblue]

The Doctor had opened the TARDIS doors and slipped inside while she was talking. His head poked out. "Cozy and messy but that's where you come in, Miranda."

He won't take offense at the "small" bit. Well, not too much. Maybe the TARDIS was an old Type-40 but really, even he still got lost in her sometimes. So cozy, yes. Small? Not so much. The Doctor banged about the inside of the TARDIS. After a few minutes, he nudged open the door. Or more accurately, what looked like a walking tower of stuff with legs nudged open the door. Hopefully Miranda was quick on her toes. The first thing visible was a collection of boxes and bags, piled higher than his head; he may be already shoving them blindly at where he thought Miranda was standing last.

"Here you go!"

The Doctor trusted her to help him with the boxes. She seemed like a capable young woman...another pair of hands could certainly be useful here. He was more than fairly sure these boxes were the safe ones. No irradiated ones.

[flawlessgenes]

Quick on her toes, she was. She deftly took control of the boxes and set them down carefully, "Do you have a preference for sorting or should I simply find what's salvageable?"

While Miranda rarely looked surprised, there had been a hint of awe at how much stuff he'd managed to carry out of such a small area. Miranda decided to assume this was yet another curiosity of pan-dimensional travels. She tilted her head in the direction of the TARDIS, "Bigger on the inside, I assume?"

[makeherblue]

The Doctor beamed at the human. Ooh, a quick one. He liked those. "Right. Much, much bigger. Smart girl."

He joined Miranda outside the TARDIS, dusting his hands off and straightening his jacket. That? Is a lot of stuff. And not even a fraction of all the stuff probably squirreled away in the TARDIS: he had centuries to perfect squirreling and at times he didn't even know how much time, exactly, he'd just collected stuff. Or acquired it. Sometimes his friends and acquaintances through time gave him gifts to remember them by. That sort of thing tended to pile up. The Doctor moved to stand next to Miranda, trying to figure out a plan of attack, wringing his hands. Miranda seemed both quick and ready to do the job, so that was good.

"Just sort them through time. Or maybe function -- wait, you might not know all the functions. Hmm..." The Doctor regarded the pile, chin in his hand. He suddenly gave Miranda a clap on the shoulder, "Sort into Stuff, Things and Other. Easy!"

[flawlessgenes]

Miranda thought about it for a moment, 'Stuff, Things and Other.' By all rights, that should have confused her but after her time on the Normandy with Mordin (whom she was now likening the Doctor to, just a bit), that method of categorizing strangely made sense. "Right."

She kneeled down in front of the boxes and began sifting through them, making tidy little piles. If it seemed to serve a purpose, she put it under 'Things'; if it looked to have some sort of sentimental value, she put it under 'Stuff'. Everything else fell into 'Other'. Soon enough she had a system running smoothly enough that sorting became second nature.

Miranda looked over to the Doctor. For someone who looked relatively young, he had collected a great deal of stuff. "Exactly how much time did it take you to collect all these things?"

[makeherblue]

The Doctor hovered for a few seconds, watching her at first. Mostly satisfied with her method (although she did put some items into the Thing pile when really, it should have been Stuff; he'll fix it later), the Doctor pulled a small chest to himself and started going through it, sitting cross-legged.

"Can't say for sure," the Doctor said, not looking up from his box, distracted. Oh, surprise! He had hit the mother lode of handkerchiefs. Wonderful, he could always use more. After a moment's consideration, the Doctor held out the box to Miranda, offering her one if she wanted. Plenty to spare. "Has to be at least a few centuries, and not just relative ones."

Another glance over at her organization. Good, quite good. And even talking, she was still working and not sitting idle. Not bad, for a human.

"Have you done this before? You look like you have."

[flawlessgenes]

Of course she was good. Any task she took on (no matter how menial) would be done to the best of her abilities. And since Miranda was engineered for perfection, it only made sense that her work would reflect that. "Not this specifically, no. But much of my previous work involved the gathering and organization of information. It's not that hard to switch from information to curious objects

[makeherblue]

Shrugging, the Doctor set the box of handkerchiefs aside, pulling a cylinder of stuff toward him. "It's good work. Nice to work with a professional, eh?"

The Time Lord occupied himself trying to open the cylinder. When it finally opened, he was annoyed to find there was nothing at all in it. It promptly went over his shoulder, tumbling back into the TARDIS.

"Alien. From your point of view. Although we're all aliens on Stacy, so..."

He smiled at her over the next thing he was tackling. Surprising that her first choice was "supernatural". Usually humans preferred aliens, at least after a certain point in history. Still, Miranda here was calm, collected, and not making a fuss about it. Military? Military had a habit of being collected, until it came time to pick up those guns. The Doctor glanced over at her, that glance trying to pick out any weapons on her.

"Anything interesting you have there?"

[flawlessgenes]

Miranda held up what, to her, appeared to be some sort of children's toy. "I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to be. Stuff? But it could also be a Thing." It had an obvious handle but the tip split off into several colorful wires that ended with what she could only categorize as 'doo-dads'.

"Yes, I suppose we are all aliens here... Though if you don't mind my asking, why is it that you look so..." She paused trying to think of the best way to word it but realized there was no tactful way to say it. "'Human' is the only word I can think of. I've seen plenty of aliens that had human characteristics but none that looked so identical. Obviously with all this multi-dimensional time-traveling business, it makes sense but where I'm from it doesn't."

And she'd been doing so well. Perhaps she would leave this bit out when speaking with Shepard later.

[makeherblue]

The Doctor took it from her. She was right in that the wires could be stuck in the Doo-Dad category but wrong in that it was a children's toy. "Wedding present, actually. I was wondering where I put that!"

Setting it down next to him, intending to put it in the study where he'd have no excuse forgetting where it was (provided he could...find the study), the Doctor went back to work sorting. He peered at Mirana over the pile of Stuff, Things and Other still needing to be organized, giving her a lazy sort of blink, as if the answer was obvious.

"Not entirely surprising. Depending on when and where you came from, I'd guess it wasn't something anyone could just pick up." And yes, for some reason he kept getting that question. There were so many ways to explain it, but really, the Time Lords simply just predated the humans. Humanity never did seem capable of grasping how young they were as a species. It was typically...well, typically humanThe Doctor waved away the question. Another time. "Trust me, plenty of differences under the

[flawlessgenes]

Under the surface. Miranda nodded in acceptance, it made sense enough. It would certainly throw a wrench into an organization like Cerberus and their 'humanity first' agenda but, after her time with Shepard, Miranda had come to enjoy working with aliens.

"You could say that," she said as she continued sorting. Stuff, Things, Stuff, Stuff, Other... "I have no formal military training but I worked with a paramilitary group for quite some time. I was a lead operative until I left to work under Commander Shepard." She motioned across the hangar towards the Normandy, "Our ship is farther down that corridor."

She looked over to the TARDIS, "Is it safe to assume that is your ship?" The TARDIS didn't look much like a ship but since it was being housed in the hangar, Miranda felt it was a logical leap.

[makeherblue]

The Doctor is quietly falling in love with Miranda's commendable organizational skills. Born natural.

She's about 70% right on what she's doing, all without him having to tell her. Of course he'll have to fix it later, but there isn't that much to fix. The Doctor shifts on the floor as Miranda points in the general direction of their own ship, as if he could identify it from here. Unfortunately, he'd probably need more to go on: uniforms, badges or pins, things like that. There are plenty of vehicles and ships in the hanger that he doesn't recognize. It's all rather exciting.

"I'd love to take a look at it sometime," the Doctor says, and it's not just him acting gracious. He really is truly interested in Miranda's ship. The Doctor kept sorting through the stuff on his end. "The TARDIS? Ship, home, everything machine. Call it what you like. I haven't been able to get her flight-worthy though. Are you the same problems with your ship?"

[flawlessgenes]

"Mm," Miranda nodded. "The Normandy is grounded until we can take care of some repairs. We took heavy damage and were in the process of repairs before arriving on Stacy." If Shepard asked, Miranda would swear to it that the discussion of the ship was entirely voluntary and she hadn't forced the Doctor into anything. They were simply carrying on a conversation about ships. It wasn't her fault she'd befriended a fellow who also happened to have a ship. She wasn't even planning to ask him for help. Shepard would be proud of how good she was being.

"You're welcome to come aboard and take a look whenever you'd like. EDI would be more than welcome to answer any questions about its workings." With Donnelly and Daniels possibly somewhere among the pods, they lacked an Engineering staff that could answer questions face-to-face. But EDI knew more about the ship than any human could possibly ever know and Miranda was grateful she hadn't been severely damaged.

Eleven might have to take up that offer. Is there a youtube of what it looks like on the inside?

[makeherblue]

Ah, so Stacy taking the Normandy might not have helped, either, if they were already needing repairs. At least if his TARDIS was anything to go by.

"I think I'd like a look around," the Doctor smiled at her. "Who knows, maybe I could help."

Of course his idea of "help" didn't always match with a human's and no, he'd most likely never seen this ship before in his life(s), but silly details like that didn't stop him. The Doctor paused, having come upon a box of old books. Books, by the way, that were in mostly perfect condition and many, if not all, were first editions. The Doctor held one up.

"How are you on books?" Some of them he remembered being his favorites. Still, he could probably stand to clean some out. No sense hoarding them and Miranda looked like a perfectly intelligent woman.

I don't know about youtube but there is this: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Normandy_SR-2

[flawlessgenes]

Miranda smiled graciously, the repairs to the Normandy weren't too bad but the offer was kind. Shepard had been right (as usual) being helpful and friend did pay off. She'd have to remember that in the future. "Perhaps you could. I'm sure the Commander would be appreciative."

Books weren't all that common in Miranda's time, most everything was stored electronically on datapads and accessed through the extranet and comm buoys. While paper copies of books were still floating around, they mostly belonged to collectors. Miranda had seen Kasumi's collection on several occasions but her own personal stash was considerably smaller. "That's very kind of you but I couldn't possibly accept. Books aren't very common where I'm from and I'd hate for you to think I was taking advantage of your kindness."

Thanks

[makeherblue]

The Doctor waved away her refusal. He had countless books stashed away...somewhere, he just would have to find them once he could locate the library all over again. Provided he could actually locate it but he wasn't too concerned about it.

"Think of it as borrowing. Long-term borrowing. Probably won't even miss it," the Doctor insisted. If she didn't have many books where -- and when -- she came from, then that was even more reason to for her to have it. The Doctor pressed H.G Wells's Journey to the Center of the Earth into her hands, "Just mind the pages and you'll be fine."