I do not own Doctor Who, Peter Pan or anything related to either of those.
It was just a bit of mottled blue.
It caught Reb's eye for reasons she couldn't quite explain. Certainly, she didn't know of any plant that produced that color blue, not in this temperate zone. It was curious, but most days she wouldn't venture off the path to explore. Reb's sense of direction was notoriously terrible, and she didn't know this part of the world very well. She didn't want to get lost.
But it didn't look that far away, and it tickled something in her memory. She couldn't place it, but the evanescence of the memory promised something extraordinary. Reb took off her sweater and tossed it over a tree branch, so she would know where the path was. Then she set off toward that strange bit of blue.
It wasn't the first time she'd ventured off a path, and walking through the untamed woods was easier than walking through the untamed wetlands. Here, the undergrowth was less dense and the ground less slippery.
Reb made good time, but, whatever the blue was, it was farther than she thought. She rubbed her arms. It was cold without her sweater.
When she finally maneuvered around a group of bushes, she saw the blue object for the first time. Her breath caught in her image before her smashed into her heart; it was utterly wrong.
Her first thought was 'no.' That simple, two letter word became first and foremost in her mind, repeating itself over and over. Sometimes it was thought in disbelief or anger or fear or hope but, mostly, a profound sadness.
Memories surfaced. Stars and planets and frightening monsters. The realization that, no matter what happened, the bad guys would never die out completely. The comforting knowledge that every once in a while everybody lives. And a man, a brilliant, amazing man, terrible and kind, who leaves the brakes on while landing his spaceship.
Reb walked up to it, his spaceship, the TARDIS. It was slightly off balance, leaning against a tree. The walls were dirty. Weeds were sprouting up around it's base, and vines were climbing up the sides. It wasn't supposed to be real. None of it was supposed to be real. The Doctor came from videos she watched on the Internet.
She reached out, wondering if someone might be playing a trick on her, and touched it. The wood felt solid enough, real enough. She ran her hands along the sides gently clearing vines and leaves. "What happened to you?" she muttered. "Did you crash?"
A soft breeze weaved through the trees; it reminded Reb that her sweater was some distance away. She didn't turn around to go get it. She didn't want to leave the TARDIS alone.
She continued cleaning it off the best she could. When the Doctor came back to it, he would find it in a better state than she had.
Reb knew there must be a Doctor. If there was a TARDIS, there was a Doctor, and he was probably not inside the ship right now. He'd never let it get in this state. Maybe he was stuck somewhere?
She moved around to the front, and continued cleaning. Her mind kept returning to the thought that something had happened to the Doctor. He was now dead, and so was the TARDIS. This was just the empty shell left behind.
She immediately rejected that idea. There was no way the Doctor or the TARDIS were dead. She did not accept that explanation; though she knew that was based on her own unwillingness to believe rather than any evidence.
Her hand brushed the lock of the TARDIS. It clicked open.
Reb froze, unable to move or breathe. Did it just unlock? Did the TARDIS just unlock? Was she invited in? She sucked in a preparatory breath, breathing for the first time since the lock clicked. Then, carefully, she pulled on the door. It swung open easily. Reb stepped inside.
It was dark. The only light came filtered by the woods behind her. She shivered, this time not from cold. It wasn't supposed to be dark in the TARDIS. A dark TARDIS was never a good sign. Fear began to tingle in her limbs. "Hello?" she called, silently begging someone to answer her. "Hello?"
Reb pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, and used it like a flashlight. Pieces of the TARDIS gleamed in the poor light. There were glass panels lining a staircase and the floor of the control platform. Reb remembered what it looked like when there were people here, back when it was bright and shiny.
Swallowing her trepidation, she stepped forward and shone her cell phone light around. The corners of her mouth turned up in a sad little smile. "It's bigger on the inside." She had always hated it when people said that. She thought it made them look a little daft. But Reb said it now with an air of tradition. She halfway hoped the TARDIS would light up again at the words. It would come back to life and the Doctor would bounce out of one of the corridors, asking her who she was.
He didn't. It didn't. Reb noticed no difference. She looked at her cell phone, getting a sudden idea. She opened the menu and switched the language to Spanish. She tried reading the words. They were in Spanish. They were not in English. They were not being translated.
"No!" she shouted, throwing her cell phone into the dark. She heard it clatter, but she didn't look for it. If she needed any more evidence that something was really wrong, that was it. TARDIS translation matrix wasn't working.
Reb was crying now. She didn't know exactly what was going on, but she knew something was terribly wrong, and that she could do nothing about it.
She needed her cell phone back. She looked to see it's light illuminating the underside of the console somewhere in front of her. Carefully, Reb inched forward, stretching her hands out. She didn't want to knock into anything.
She was halfway toward her phone when it went out. It must have been thirty seconds. The only illumination came from the outside now. She bumped into something. Squinting in the dim light, she saw it was a swing, a chair beneath the console platform. Reb took it and she sat, resting her head against cable and swinging a tiny, tiny bit back and forth.
Please be okay, she thought. Please don't be dead. Please, please, please. Don't be dead. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of something she could do, some way she could help. Nothing came to mind.
"I do believe in fairies. I do. I do," she chanted quietly, as if the TARDIS was Tinkerbell and Reb could keep her light from going out. "I do believe in fairies. I do. I do."
Fun fact: I just felt a bit sick. Think I just encountered the Silence?
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