Personal disclaimer: This is my first attempt at writing Doctor Who fanfic. Please be kind, and feel free to offer constructive criticisms!
ONE
"Oh, I love that swooshing!" Martha Jones exclaimed as the TARDIS made its exit. "My heart always skips a bit – I just know I'm in for something really exciting!"
"You think it's a swooshing? I find it more of a grinding," Captain Jack Harkness replied.
"Really? You think so?" She made a funny face and then attempted to imitate the totally unique, otherwordly sound. Jack looked on, amused, but Martha was earnest. She sat quiet for a few moments, contemplating. Then she announced, "Nah, definitely swooshing."
"You're crazy!" In disagreement, Jack did his own impression of the TARDIS' voice. "It's like gears. Gears grind – they don't swoosh."
"Erm, children! A little help please?" the Doctor cut in, his black reader glasses perched unnecessarily upon his very pointed nose. He was struggling with the vehicle's console, and his argumentative friends came to his aid.
Jack did not like the looks of the screen's display, flashing the words "Registering human hostages," in red letters across the bottom.
"What the hell does that mean?" Jack asked the Doctor.
In his signature machine-gun Doctorspeak, the Time Lord answered, "It's a safety feature I install and re-upgrade when taking humans aboard the TARDIS. It lets me know that where I'm going isn't friendly territory for humans and I should turn this boat around! Only it won't turn around. I need someone to steer the space flux direction control and push any way except for forward. I'm going to get to the heart of the matter."
Jack took the reins while Martha looked on, and the Doctor slid underneath the console to check into what he called "the heart" of the TARDIS.
A siren went off somewhere in the control room, and Jack screamed, "I'm losing control, Doctor! What's happening?"
"She's homing in on something..." the Doctor yelled from below.
"Homing in? What's that mean?" Martha called out as the floor beneath their feet began to shake violently, and it became amply clear that their ship was in crash-land mode.
"Martha, take the wheel," Jack said urgently. As she did so, he slid under the console with the Doctor.
She heard them yelling at each other, but she couldn't work out what they were saying. She concentrated on aiming the TARDIS 'any way except for forward.' Finally, she heard Jack cry out, "What? With human hostages? We've got to..."
Whatever he did, it made things a lot worse. The TARDIS turned upside-down momentarily, causing all three occupants to scream and hold on for dear life. Suddenly, it came to a screeching halt (swooshing, grinding... whatever), and all alarms, screens and buttons on the console went back to normal.
The Doctor slid out, and stood up. He looked at Martha with puzzlement, but she knew that he wasn't searching her for answers. He was, in reality, looking right through her.
"The TARDIS has homed in on another benevolent energy initiator," he mumbled.
She smiled, not having the faintest clue what he was talking about, but wanting to show that she was listening. "Another benevolent energy initiator? So this has happened before?"
"No, he means that it has homed in on another of its own kind," Captain Jack explained to Martha. Then, to the Doctor, "Don't you?"
"Yes," the Doctor replied without moving his lips.
"It means that wherever we are, there is some kind of device that has a 'heart' similar to that of the TARDIS. A benevolent energy initiator – it means it can heal. I mean, that's not all it can do... it's just one of the many fine bells and whistles," he said, patting the TARDIS' console affectionately.
"And the TARDIS has literally been attracted here, wherever here is, because it sensed that it has a cousin or whatever?" Martha asked.
"Not just that," the Doctor muttered. "It means that the cousin must be in some trouble."