Title: Three Conversations with the TARDIS
Characters: The Doctor (Ten), Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler, Jack Harkness, Martha Jones, the TARDIS
Rating: G
Spoilers: None really. Conversations are set over Series Two and Three.
Summary: Just because she doesn't speak, doesn't mean the TARDIS isn't listening.
Author's Note: I should really be writing my term paper for my history of the Crusades course. Yet here we are.
I. Jackie Tyler
"Rose? I brought the tea." Jackie calls, knocking on the TARDIS' door. Rose had returned only a half hour before, had popped up to the flat for a quick chat, put in a request for tea, and had then hurried back to help the Doctor with repairs before the kettle had even finished boiling.
The blue door is whipped open and Rose is there, grinning.
"Thanks Mum." Her daughter says, taking the tea tray from Jackie and heading back inside. Jackie follows; the TARDIS fascinates her, more because it's Rose's home than because it's an alien spaceship.
"Is that the tea? Brilliant. And Hobnobs! Love Hobnobs! Did you know, in 2248 there's a revolution in Scotland because of a Hobnob shortage? 61 people dead because of a delicious chocolate oatmeal biscuit. Amazing." The Doctor manages to inhale several biscuits as he says this, while simultaneously dunking his tie into his tea mug.
"Just look at you, crumbs everywhere, tea on yourself. Like a five year old you are." Jackie clucks, watching as flecks of oatmeal tumble from his mouth down to the grated floor.
"'s alright. It's just a little mess." The Doctor protests, even as he's spilling more tea from his mug onto the tea tray and the consol. "Oh. Oops." He flashes her hopeful grin, the kind she came long ago to recognize as the I-did-something-bad-and-don't-want-to-clean-up-after-myself-and-aren't-I-cute grin.
Jackie's never been able to resist the Little Boy lost look and this Doctor has the pleading eyes down to an art form.
"Where's the kitchen then? I suppose it'll have a tea towel at least?"
"It's just down that hall there," Rose points, "should be the second door to the left. Although it could be the first on the right today, those are the TARDIS' favourite places for it."
"Right then. Be back in a jiff. And don't you dare eat any more of those biscuits," Jackie glares at the Doctor, "when Rose hasn't even had the one." She's pleased to see his hand fly back from the package empty.
The first door on the right reveals an old-fashioned lift with buttons for 49 floors and the second door on the left conceals a swimming room. After that she just throws open random doors, wondering how Rose can live like this, not knowing if you'll find a zoo (door seven on the right) or an ice rink (door five on the left).
She stops at the ninth door on the left. It's not the kitchen, but for Jackie, it's far more interesting. It's Rose's bedroom.
It looks nothing like her room at home. It's blue and silver and beautiful, not something you'd think to find in Jackie Tyler's flat, that's for certain. It's a grown up room. She doesn't know what she was expecting. No, a voice edges into her mind, she was expecting to find pink. Pink, with lots of pillows and baubles. Like Rose's room at home, like her room has been since she was a little girl.
There's pictures of her and Rose everywhere though, which unexpectedly makes her tear up. All these years (and it has been years for her, if not for Rose) she'd thought that Rose had just run off, happy to forget about her mad old mum. But here's proof that, at least sometimes, Rose wants to remember her.
"Oh Rose." She sighs, picking up a shot of Rose as a grinning six-year-old, caught up Jackie's arms. Oh god, how young they both look.
She's felt something in her mind since she came on board. It's not new, it's the same every time she enters the Doctor's domain. Scared the living daylights out of her the first time, until Rose had explained. Still, Jackie thinks it's a bit odd that a spaceship is alive and in her mind, but Rose assures her that the TARDIS won't hurt her and, strangely, she finds it a bit comforting, especially right now.
"You take care of her, you hear me?" Jackie says aloud, hoping that the TARDIS can understand her words, "I know he says he will, but can't trust a man, or, I suppose in his case, an alien. Whatever he is, he's more than a little mad and, far as I can tell, trouble finds him no matter what he does, so just make sure she's safe, right? Him too, I suppose. She's my best girl, my only girl, so just…just take care of her, yeah? Keep her in one piece." Her heart too, she almost adds, and even though she doesn't, she can feel the TARDIS in her mind, reassuring her, calming her, promising those things to her.
Because the TARDIS is like Jackie, like a mother, and they want the same things for the Doctor and Rose. Like Jackie, she shelters them and cares for them and then sends them out into the world, where she can't protect them and, like any mother, she just has to trust that they've learned enough to make it on their own, to survive long enough to come back to her, where she can protect them once more.
"Thank you." Jackie says quietly, placing the photograph back on Rose's dresser before heading slowly back into the corridor.
The next door she tries opens into the kitchen.
II. Jack Harkness and the Doctor
"Oh you beautiful, beautiful girl." Jack praises, stroking the TARDIS' wall while she purrs contentedly.
"Jack, please stop propositioning my ship." The Doctor protests from under the console, just before a shower of sparks fly out. "Oww!" He sticks a knuckle into his mouth, sucking on his scorched digit.
"Never get between a lady and her admirers Doctor. In nine hundred years I thought you'd have at least learned that."
"Fine," the Doctor says, but to the TARDIS, not to Jack. "I'm the one who takes care of you when you're sick, keeps you alive, cleans you when you've been sprayed with corrosive slime by Zfyanxians, but no, you decide now, after almost a millennium that you like Captain Jack more than me."
"Oh, she knows you love her, don't you girl? She just likes some attention now and then."
"I give her attention!" The Doctor cries, "Look, right now, me, paying attention to her, fixing her, touching her."
"Yeah, but that's just habit, isn't it? A girl likes to know she's appreciated, likes a little praise, some flirtation, something to make her feel alive."
"I will not flirt with my TARDIS!" The Doctor protests. "I am still a Time Lord, we do not flirt with our ships."
"Well with that attitude no wonder you get singed now and then." Jack smirks while the TARDIS hums in agreement.
"Traitor." The Doctor mutters, slipping back under the consol.
III. Martha Jones
Martha laughs when the Doctor tells her that the TARDIS is alive, because really? Alive, this hunk of metal? But then he looks at her that way and she knows not to laugh anymore, not if she doesn't want to be kicked out at their next intergalactic stop. And she doesn't really fancy spending the rest of her life on a satellite station in the 37th Century or wherever it is he's taking her, so she says quiet.
The TARDIS is never quiet, but what mechanical thing is? She thinks the humming is normal, like the buzz that comes from a computer or the constant purr of airplane, the things that let you know the machine is working.
But after a month on board, she knows the TARDIS hates her. It's either that or she's going crazy, so, for obvious reasons, she's willing to believe the TARDIS is indeed alive and that it most definitely hates her.
It starts with random malfunctions in her room. The lights will go out just when she's reaching the climax of her book or the hot water in her washroom will cut out during her morning shower. The Doctor never says anything when she stumbles out of her room, robe askew, hair soaped with shampoo, but he smirks a little as she heads to find another bathroom and chuckles while he trails his hand along the wall. Martha is coming to accept that the TARDIS is indeed chuckling in reply.
Not only is she alive, but she's cheeky to boot. Great.
She is able to put up with it for another couple of months. The worst is when the TARDIS moves rooms around. The Doctor thinks it's hilarious, but he's not the one who can't find a washroom when he needs one. One night it takes her almost an hour to find her room. When she does, it's half its normal size and her blankets are missing.
There are limits, Martha thinks, to what a girl can take. And the disappearance of her fluffy yellow comforter is her's.
"Alright!" She cries. "Enough! I get it. You don't like me. Fine. I'm wrong and I'm sorry. I'm sorry my normal, human brain didn't immediately accept that," she laughs hysterically, "a blue police box that's bigger on the inside and which travels through time and space was actually alive. Now can you please return my room to normal?"
The room shimmers briefly and suddenly her comforter is back on her bed. The room is still smaller than usual, but it's a start.
The next day it only takes half an hour to find her room.