Romana was working in the TARDIS, the ship that the she traveled space and time in, along with her fellow Gallifreyan, the Doctor,. She looked at the circuits for the directional navigator carefully, both with her eyes and with that certain sense of temporal acuity only Time Lords share. The white light of the console reflected off her shiny maroon frock's silver decorations. K-9, her trusty dog that wasn't a dog, sat a few feet to her right, constantly watchful for a chance to help its Mistress. Overall , besides the sound of the humming TARDIS, it was rather quiet-
"It's far too quiet!" Romana suddenly shouted, stomping her red shoes on the TARDIS floor (and accidentally kicking one of the Doctor's yoyos to the center of the floor).
The Fourth Doctor , who was sleeping in one of his 4 bedrooms somewhere further down, briefly turned over, and muttered something about how Romana would figure whatever it was out.
Romana folded her arms. K-9, sensing his Mistress was in distress, zipped over to her. "What is the problem, Mistress?"
"I'm feeling an emotion, K-9. It's hard to describe. I am annoyed by all the quiet," Romana said.
K-9 went into his databanks to find the solution. "Are you afraid of danger?"
Romana thought. "No," she decided, "that's not it. I'm actually somewhat relieved to have a break."
"Loneliness could be the problem. Are you in need of companionship?" said K-9.
Romana smiled at that. "No, you and the Doctor give me all the companionship I require," she said, petting the her dog's head.
K-9 thought some more about the question. Then it swiveled from right to left quickly. It was its version of shrugging. "I believe you are suffering from boredom, Mistress."
"Boredom?" she said. "I...have never heard of the concept."
A whirring noise came from K-9, then it said "To be bored is: to be wearied by dullness, tedious repetition, unwelcome attentions, etc. Citation: as of Nov 17-"
"Thank you, K-9," Romana interrupted. She began to pace the TARDIS floor, a finger on her chin.
"We never had boredom on Gallifrey," she said, pondering. Suddenly she stopped pacing, and then ran, stricken with panic, to K-9's face. "Is this boredom contagious? C-could I pass it to the Doctor? Is it communicable to synthetic lifeforms like yourself?" she asked.
K-9 clarified "It is a mental state, not a disease, Mistress. You never had times where there was nothing to do, or no activity, on Gallifrey?"
"Well...no. I suppose this 'boredom' you speak of was the normal state of affairs on Gallifrey. It never bothered me before, but ever since I started traveling with the Doctor..." She frowned.
Romana stood, tapping her feet and lost in a combination of deep thought and indecision. Then her eyes opened wide as she got an idea. She started running around the console, pushing buttons.
"I have a plan!" she said, a dimply grin forming on her mouth. "I'll set the TARDIS to help me find the most bored person in the universe, and ask her advice on how to cure boredom!'
"Perhaps continuing work on the console would help cure the boredom?" offered K-9 as the ship started to move through the vortex of time and space.
"I could fix the TARDIS in my sleep during post-regenerative madness," Romana said off-handedly.
Subconsciously, a part of the Doctor's mind noted telepathically that the TARDIS was moving. The rest of his mind told that part to go back to bed and that Romana would handle it.
On the other side of the galaxy, Captain Zie-buck was bored beyond belief. His young daughter, who was training to become a cook, was supposed to visit him in about 4 weken (1 month in Earth days) . But she had canceled at the last minute, so now he was just stuck at his post. His room was white, with almost no color except some rust on the communication controls. There were no wars, or any other activity to give excitement; it was night-time, so just about everybody was asleep. Except for the Captain, who was assigned to security on the Eternal Colony. He felt like the most bored person in the universe.
Until he heard a loud grinding sound behind him. Swiveling around, he was met with the sight of a blue police box. Having never seen a blue police box before, he was even more astonished then the usual onlooker. Out came a blond woman with a maroon coat, red gloves, and small bonnet. Her squirrelly face looked around, taking in all the details of the room.
"So this is the most boring place in the entire universe," said the strange woman.
The Captain was, frankly, unprepared for this. "Um, excuse me, but you are in violation of Security Protocol, well...all of them, actually," he stammered.
The woman looked at him and clapped her hands together in joy. "Hello. My name is Romanadvoratrelundar. You may call me "Fred" for short. What's your name?"
"Err-well," stammered Captain Zie-buck, still trying to take everything it all in.
"Err-well? I like that name. Easy to remember," said Fred. She held out her hand to shake.
"Thank you. I think," he said, shaking the hand back.
"Therefore, that's how you know you are," said Fred. She looked at the white, non-descript walls of the room. "Where is this?"
"This is a security chamber on the human colony Eternal," said the Captain, carefully trying to gauge how dangerous Fred was.
"Eternal? That's courting Fate, you know," she said. The Captain looked into her cerulean eyes, and saw...something older, just for a second. "Empereor Augustus thought Rome would last forever. I know, because he told me he thought so."
"Who's Augustus?" asked Captain Zie-buck quite honestly.
"Exactly," said Fred.
The Captain didn't get it.
"Anyway, I came because I found out you are the most bored man in the universe," she said. She lowered her face closer to the Captain's. "And I thought, as the most bored man in the universe, you could help me and tell me how you stave off boredom. Because you must have experience," she said conspiratorially.
Most bored man in the universe? Captain Zie-buck felt oddly honored. "Sorry, but when I get bored, all I do is stay bored. I haven't found the cure yet."
"Well, then this was a complete waste of the fourth dimension," she said, rolling her eyes. She quickly began walking away to the police box.
Despite the fact that Fred was both a complete intruder and a serious security risk, the Captain felt sad for her. "Wait," he called out to her, " I have found that one thing helps. When I think about my daughter, or someone I care about, sometimes that makes the boredom go away."
Quicker than he could blink, she had turned around and was standing in front of him. It was actually somewhat frightening. "Thank you, Err-well. You've been a good help," she said, giving him a quick (and surprisingly strong) hug. Then she walked back to the blue box.
"Wait, now that I've helped you, now I need to talk to you about how you got here," Captain Zie-buck started to say. He was ready to prove his worth as a security manager of the colony.
Fred was gone before he could even finish the sentence.
The hum of the TARDIS vibrated through the ship as Romana sat on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and her body was extremely still. Finally, K-9, realizing thet Mistress had been still for exactly 6.8 more minutes than her overall maximum pause between activity while awake decided to that he should check on his Mistress."
"Is Mistress okay?" it asked.
"Shh, K-9. I'm thinking about you, and the Doctor, and the people I left on my home planet," she said. After about 5 more minutes, she sighed, opened her eyes, and said, "His cure didn't work."
"Your endorphin and dopamine levels have significantly increased," K-9 noted.
"Yes, but I'm still a little bored,' she said. As she began to feel her quest to conquer boredom was going to end a failure, she noticed one of the Earth toys the Doctor always played with lying on the ground.
She picked it up. "What is this, K-9?" she asked.
"A yo-yo, Mistress,' said K-9.
Up, down. Up, down. Up, down. To Romana , the motion felt mesmerizing. She began to try to see how changing her hand would affect the motion. Sure enough, the yo-yo's motion would change. Sometimes she would call the yo-yo back quickly, and other times she would let the yo-yo move slowly, following the motion with her eyes. With her temporal Time Lord senses, she could predict the exact motion of the toy, but she soon found it much more thrilling to just let it be a surprise. She was so engrossed in the yo-yo, she never even noticed the Doctor standing behind her.
"Ah, I see you've finally begun appreciating my 'Earth toy'?" he said.
Romana was startled, though she didn't show it. "I've found this wonderful cure for boredom," she said proudly.
"Oh, have you now?" said the Doctor with a smile. They both knew that Romana had been teasing the Doctor about his toy for weeks, so she was being a little hypocritical. The Doctor knew better than to mention that, though.
"Oh yes, it's a wonderful invention. I'm beginning to realize why you like that planet so much," she said.
"I like that planet for many reasons. But it's good that you're beginning to see the light. Or the Earth, as it were," the Doctor said.
"Would you mind...if I kept the toy a little longer?" Romana said, holding the yo-yo tight to her chest.
"Keep it. I have a lot of spares, " the Doctor said.
"Thank you!" she said, kissing the Doctor on the cheek.
The Doctor grinned at her, and then walked to the TARDIS console. Inputting coordinates, he said " Where to now? How about Paris? There's some wonderful paintings at that place!"
Romana rolled her eyes. "Of course, Earth would be your destination," she said. Then , after a pause, she added , "But let's go a little later. Right now, I want to play with this toy some more first."
The Doctor was surprised, but said "All right. We'll go to Paris later."
Romana smiled sweetly at him, and then went to her room to play with her new toy, and also get ready for a relaxing trip to Paris.
A few minutes passed. K-9 sat in silence.
Then the Doctor declared "Now I'm bored!"