Author's Note: I have, quite frankly, no idea how this story came to be. If anyone has any speculations, then please feel free to tell me, because I'm at a loss. I think my muse/inspiration/whatever you call it must be a very odd creature.
Anyway, this is set after The Shakespeare Code, when he is taking her home.
Disclaimer: Alright, I admit it, I am the secret of owner of Doctor Who. I sit in my little dark attic, cackling a lot and gazing at general proceedings through the crystal ball I nicked from the Carionites.
Really, no.
Closed Doors
"DOCTOR!" The scream cut through the relative quiet of the TARDIS with all the quiet softness of a knife. A very sharp one. With jagged edges.
The Doctor looked up sharply from the small hole in the TARDIS floor in which he was ensconced. This he regretted a few moments later, as, in the act of looking up sharply, his head collided rather violently with a sharp pointy metal spike that stuck out of the inner-workings of the TARDIS for no apparent reason at all. He swore (don't worry, it was in Ancient Hindrogenticien and roughly translated to 'Oh how annoying') and clambered out from the hole-in-the-TARDIS-floor, rubbing his head gingerly.
The person from whom the scream had emanated, perhaps impatient for an answer or just merely enjoying the screaming, took the opportunity to let rip another piercing shout.
"DOCTOR!"
"Alright, alright no need to shout," The Doctor muttered, rubbing his head. He exited the Control Panel Room via a modest brown door set deep back into the room and found himself in a long corridor with doors set into the walls. This corridor stretched a long way, so that at the end, all you could see was a spot of brown that was, presumably, another door.
"DOCTOR!" The cries were now tinged with a slight hysteria and the Doctor sighed.
He opened a door that lead into another long corridor with other long corridors leading out from it. He took the first left, second right, third on the left, straight ahead, down a long corridor, ducked underneath the sweeping flight of stairs, past the three tin-can-like bins and went into the fifth door on his left.
He emerged into a cavernous room that was filled with metals rails from which groaned a huge variety of clothes and costumes. From eighteenth-century finery to modern space-age silver jackets and helmets, all the clothes imaginable and more could be found in this room.
He walked across, pausing occasionally to seize upon an odd garment; an impossibly long scarf or odd sock and exclaim 'Oh there it is' with affection. When he reached the other side of the costume room, he had so many different items of clothing draped over him that had bore an odd resemblance to a Christmas tree.
He pushed open the door with an odd sense of foreboding. The corridor the door opened out onto was painted a neutral shade of cream. There was only one door that he could go through and it was ajar.
A face appeared around the door. It was apologetic and slightly embarrassed.
"Sorry Doctor. I got lost an' then I was in this room with this giant green plant thing that started moving so I got scared and yelled your name and then I ran into this really long corridor and got lost so I was yelling your name again and then I found this room…"
"It's Rose's." The Doctor's voice was calm and steady, but it had a certain edge to it; something like anger only it wasn't. Cold anger, it could be described as, but it was tinged with sadness too.
"I…erm…well…yeah." Martha Jones looked anxiously up at the Doctor. "Is that alright?"
The Doctor looked past her and into the cluttered room. He hadn't been in there since Rose had left. He didn't acknowledge that there were many such rooms in the TARDIS that he didn't enter anymore. These rooms were filled with clothes and photos and hairbrushes and toothbrushes and odd socks and books. Maybe, very possibly, Martha herself would leave behind a room that the Doctor wouldn't enter, when she left.
But she was only going on one trip. One journey that she had already been on. A snapshot of a wonderful, impossible world and now she was going home. He had been very certain on that point. One trip and that was it.
"Doctor?" He blinked and looked back at her.
"What? Oh yeah, sorry, I haven't been down here in ages. I suppose you should get a quick tour of the TARDIS, but you're going back know, so there isn't much point. Come back to the Control Panel, I might need some help holding down the temporal traversal shifter. It was stuck down with some sellotape but its come loose, so I'll need you in there."
"OK," she had gone quiet at the mention of her going home but knew not to push the point right at that moment. "Could you…?"
"Hm? Oh yeah, it's just through here. Go through that big room with the clothes and through the door at the end. I'll be with you in a minute."
He lingered in the room, looking around the place that had once been Rose Tyler's bedroom onboard the TARDIS.
He then turned around and switched the light off. He closed the door and followed Martha Jones outside.
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