AN: Just a short fic. My tribute to the love between the Doctor and his TARDIS, my 50th Anniversary fic. I don't own Doctor Who.
He loves her.
It's a complicated relationship, though. They have only spoken once, in over 1000 years of knowing each other.
She loves him. Her Doctor. He beautiful thief.
He loves her. His TARDIS. His wonderful old girl.
The thing, though, about these two, this wonderful old pair, is that they will always be with each other. Long after the rest of them have gone, the strays he keeps bringing home, it will be him, and her. The Doctor and his TARDIS. The TARDIS and her thief. Because that's what happened that one fateful day when the Doctor was young and the universe - the universe that he would come to love - was still unexplored, by him.
The way they tell it in the books and fairy tales and all the stories, he wandered into her, starting a wonderful journey that would take them, twisting and turning, all through this big, wide, wonderful world. Taking the knackered, damaged TARDIS. The TARDIS that was a relic when he was still young. The Type 40, with the broken Chameleon Circuit. But is that really the way it went that fateful day, that day that would change the world?
Not quite. In a way, she, actually, stole him. She left her doors unlocked because she wanted to explore. She left them unlocked because she wanted to see the universe. She left the doors unlocked and she stole a Time Lord, and ran away.
Or is it, rather, they stole each other?
So for years they traveled, and the Doctor figured out, she was never very reliable. She hardly ever took him where he wanted to go. But still he loved her, and she loved him. So they traveled. The 'strays' came and went, all of them, but when he was slumped in a chair in the control room with the waves of sadness washing over him, the tides crashing in, she was there for him.
When he did, it, finally, when all the Time Lords were gone, she wasn't.
When all the Time Lords were gone, she was still there for him. Because always she would be.
There is a word, I think, that describes them. One word far over all the rest. It's so big, and complicated, and sad. So many adventures are tucked between the simple five letters of this one English word, spoken on this one tiny planet, an ant compared to the rest of this ever-expanding universe.
Alive.
Because he is a live, and she is alive within the walls of that box, within all the wires and the exploding star and the control panels. To him, she is alive, because she thinks and moves and has always been there for him. She is his best friend, his lover, his wife, and his mother all at the same time. The Doctor wouldn't be the Doctor without his TARDIS, and she wouldn't feel like herself without him.
That one little word is so big in the TARDIS' eyes because, simply put, she isn't quite it. But her Doctor is. And to him, she is. She is very much alive. Because he talks to her, sometimes, when they are alone, the companions, the strays, the passers-by asleep within her walls or absent completely. He sits inside the control, and he looks at her beautiful panels - "The most beautiful thing I've every seen." - and he just talks. He tells her how much he loves her, how thankful he is that he picked her, and that she picked him. He tells her how thankful he is that he stole that particular blue box and ran away with her.
Even if she never takes him where he wants to go.
Even if he always leaves the brakes on.