Jan 13, 2007 23:19
Something beeped.
Now, this was completely normal for the TARDIS, the console room itself a small cacophony of beeps and buzzes and hums.
Something beeped again.
This was now odd.
After a third time of the pulsating beep, it grew to disconcerting, and the Doctor decided it was about time he figure out what the bloody hell that new sound was about. It was completely out of place, and louder than the rest, echoing a bit through the empty room.
It never used to feel like a cavern. Even with one other person, it felt so much smaller, and so much closer, meant in the best way possible.
It had taken him about five times around the console before pinpointing where it was, and then it took him about five minutes to pinpoint what it was. After that, well. He didn't believe it.
There was quite a long time afterwards where he didn't believe that it meant what it meant, and he ran scan after scan, muttering to the TARDIS, asking her what was wrong, why she was making something long dead come to life like that when it certainly wasn't possible. Perhaps something needed replacing and she was just acting up to get his attention. Because there wasn't any plausible way that the communications system for Protocol 12-7 could activate. That needed authorization and a specific code and signal from the Gallifreyan High Council itself, and that was long gone.
Though he reasoned that the TARDIS would never play around with something like that just for the memories it was sure to drag up, and though the TARDIS seemed quite glitch-free, there wasn't a Gallifrey and there weren't Time Lords. Therefore, something was wrong.
Actually, a lot was wrong, because if there was nothing wrong with the system and nothing wrong with the TARDIS and nothing wrong with himself, then either someone had somehow hacked into the system or there really was a message from the High Council telling him that his arse and everyone else's in the universe was in trouble. But certainly it wasn't the latter.
After around an hour and a half, he was yelling at it and pacing wildly back and forth. "You can't exist! You can't be beeping! Stop doing that!" If Rose had still been around, she certainly would have thought him a little crazy by this time.
Half an hour after that, he was sitting in the chair, feet pulled up and arms and chin resting on his knees, staring silently at the console. He was by no means hoarse, but he didn't need to yell at it all day. It couldn't be, he knew, he was certain, and yet he wasn't.
And about an hour after that, a voice crackled to life through the system, a voice that he knew--his own, from not too long ago...