I don't own Doctor Who or anything to do with it. I do own Aleera, her culture and the two made up planets. This fic is probably the only thing I've ever written with no swearing. Probably because it was based on Doctor Who, which is a family show. So it's rated K. That's surprising for something I've written.

It was based on a dream I had and I wrote it just for fun. I went back and forth about posting it for quite a while, but I needed to get it out. It's not the best thing I've written, but I still like it. It was fun to write. It's been a long time since I just wrote something with no planning whatsoever, and it was a nice break.

So I hope you enjoy this fic.

The Girl in the TARDIS

There was more to the TARDIS than what first met the eye. Rose had learned that quickly. The bizarre vehicle was fascinating and almost… ever-changing. She had spent hours upon hours exploring the sentient machine once she had joined The Doctor and pretty much every day after that and she thought she knew all of it. She thought she knew it almost as well as The Doctor. No one could know the TARDIS as well as The Doctor, since it was pretty much a part of him, but Rose felt at home in the blue box and she felt like she knew it.

That is, until she found The Room.

Somehow, she'd stumbled upon a room she'd never seen before, tucked away and sealed. Rose knew, without asking, that it would only open for The Doctor, but by some freak chance, it wasn't sealed completely that day and Rose was able to peer inside.

She wished she hadn't.

There was a woman in that room, lying in some sort of… coffin or containment unit. Or something. She had hair the colour of blood, a red so dark it was almost black. It was loose and fanned out beneath her shoulders. Rose thought she would be tall when she stood up, tall and slim. She was dressed in weird black robes and her feet were bare. There were three blue spots in a straight line on her cheek by her slightly pointed ear.

Rose had never seen anyone who looked like her, not in all the time she'd travelled with The Doctor, not on all the planets they had visited. She had no idea how to broach the topic of the strange woman with him though, regardless of all that time spent together. How did you ask someone about a woman they kept hidden in a room? How could you possibly bring that into conversation? How did you force someone By being direct, she supposed. By forgetting that she felt a little betrayed and scared at the discovery and by just sucking all that in and asking the question.

So she went to find The Doctor. He was where he usually could be found: down in the main room of the TARDIS, fiddling with the knobs and whatever else made up the control board. He looked content there, with his machine, and Rose watched him for a moment, wondering how well she really knew him. How well she could really ever know him. She loved him, but she wasn't sure she could ever really know or understand the Time Lord.

The young woman sighed. "Doctor," she called as she descended the stairs.

"Yes Rose?" He didn't turn to look at her. He rarely looked up when he was working with the TARDIS. "What is it?"

Rose took a deep breath, ran a hand back through her blonde hair and said, "Who is that woman in the hidden room?"

The Doctor froze, his hands hovering above the controls. He turned slowly and looked at Rose with a look she'd never seen directed at her before—a look of anger and surprise—but she knew she deserved it. She had snooped, albeit unintentionally, and found something he hadn't wanted her to. She had discovered a secret of his. He looked a little betrayed, but instead of saying anything, instead of yelling, he walked up the stairs past her and led the way back to the strange room. Frowning, he traced the tiny opening Rose had looked through before he placed his hand against the wall. A door opened at his touch and he walked into the room, stopping a few steps away from the containment unit and staring down at the redhead.

"You can come in," The Doctor said to Rose. His voice was different—quiet where it was usually exuberant.

Rose approached cautiously and stood beside The Doctor, not daring to go any closer than he did to the strange woman. The blonde looked down at her and found that she couldn't take her eyes away. There was something about her that was absorbing. She looked mostly human, but Rose knew she couldn't be. "Who is she?" she asked in a breath.

"She would have you call her Mace," The Doctor said slowly. "Her real name is Aleera Halen Rahdra Mace, but only those closest to her get to call her Aleera. It's a quirk of her culture—the Keplaarians. Names are important in her culture."

"What happened to her? Why is she here and not with her people?"

The Doctor looked sideways at Rose and she saw the pain cross his face. It was gone in a second. "It's… a long story. A complicated story."

"Doctor."

He sighed and ran a hand back over his hair. "Rose…" He took in the look on her face and started. "I'll try and condense it. The Old Keplaarians built machines, wonderful complex machines. Their entire civilization was built on these machines, but there was no one left alive by the time Aleera was born who could build them, but every so often someone would be born with the ability to communicate with the machines, to repair and maintain them. These people were called The Gears." The Doctor paused and took a deep breath. Rose knew not to interrupt because this was obviously hard for him. "Aleera was a Gear. A good one. A great one." A wistful smile crossed his face and he shook his head. "But one of the other Gears in her generation… he was born with the ability to build the complex machines and so he did. He built things in secret, small at first, but he couldn't keep it small. Something went wrong when he started building bigger things."

"And his machines destroyed the planet?" Rose asked. It was meant to be a joke, but her tone came out serious and when she saw The Doctor's face, she knew it was. So she shut up.

"The machines he built fed off his life force until they became sentient. Then they started moving into the vast cities, absorbing the consciousness of all the Keplaarians they could reach. I went there to help, but I was too late." He stopped talking again and rubbed at his face. "The robots were already too ingrained into the machines built by the Old Keplaarians to be stopped without destroying them and the whole planet; all the machines were connected. Aleera and a group of the survivors were fighting, but they were losing." The Doctor sighed heavily and moved closer to the unit holding the redhead and placed a hand on the see-through top. "I stayed for several days, but it just got worse. The machines were evolving and we couldn't keep up." His voice dropped lower and Rose had to strain to hear. He was leaning closer to the woman. "Almost everyone was dead and Aleera asked me to take her with me when I left. I shouldn't have. I should have known something would go wrong, but she wouldn't have survived there; I couldn't just leave her."

The silence that followed was heavy and Rose was afraid to break it. She had never seen The Doctor look the way he looked now.

"How… how did this happen?" she asked finally, gesturing at Mace.

"She was fine for a few days as we traveled, but the longer she was away from the machines of her planet, the worse she got until she passed out and didn't wake up again." The Doctor stroked the top of the container as if he was touching the woman herself. "The TARDIS made this room for her to keep her alive."

Rose felt the tears on her cheeks. She hadn't even realized she'd begun to cry. "How long as she been here?"

"Two years, give or take a few days."

Rose sobbed and only then did The Doctor look at her. He looked like he would cry, but the tears just hovered in his eyes. "Is there anything we can do?" she asked. "Can we take her somewhere? Get her help? Could we take her back to her home planet? Maybe the robots are gone, maybe we can get her close to the machines the Old Keplaarians built, maybe—"

"Maybe."

"Why haven't you taken her back there?" Rose asked. She was startled that he hadn't already tried. He was never so slow to act.

When The Doctor answered a few moments later, it was with the last thing Rose expected to hear. "I'm scared to take her back there and have nothing happen. I'm scared to take her back there and get all of us killed because of it because we're attacked by those damn robots." The Doctor turned back to Mace and put both hands on the container above her. "I'm scared that because I took her away from the planet she's slowly dying and there's no way for me to help her."

"If you had left her there she would have died anyway, and it probably would have been terrible." Rose took a careful step towards him and placed a hand on his arm. When he didn't move, she wrapped her arms around him and held him close. "I think we should try and wake her up," she said quietly.

The Doctor returned the embrace and leaned into her a bit. "I know."

"And we won't get killed. If we stay in the TARDIS, they can't get at us, so we'll just stay inside and wait for her to wake up."

"They can still get at the TARDIS, but OK. We'll try." He was obviously reluctant, but there was a light in his eyes that told Rose he was also excited. The Doctor and Rose separated and he turned to look down at Mace. He once again ran his hand over the enclosure. "I'm sorry it's taken so long Aleera," he whispered, his voice full of regret.

The pair of them left the room and the TARDIS sealed it again behind them. When they were back down in the main area of the alien vehicle and standing in place to pilot it across the stars, Rose cleared her throat to bring the attention back to her one more time before they made for Keplaar. There was still one nagging question that she needed to have answered before she put herself behind this venture one-hundred percent.

"You two were close, I take it. Since you called her Aleera."

The Doctor's usual flurry of hand motions slowed briefly over the controls. "Yes, we were."

"Do you think she'll recognize you if she wakes up?"

"Let's just get her up and then we can worry about getting her to remember who I am."

Rose nodded her agreement before her and The Doctor made their way into the universe.

The Doctor was sitting on the floor in the room with Aleera, staring at her unmoving form, his elbows propped on his knees and his eyes unblinking. The TARDIS had created this room to be a little darker and slightly orange-tinted, just like Keplaar was outside. It was meant as a comfort to Aleera if she ever woke up, but The Doctor found it comforting as well.

They had arrived on Keplaar about fifteen minutes ago and, as luck would have it, they landed outside of the nearest city—a beautiful monstrosity of tall, narrow spires and massive gears, sparkling gold in the orange light from the dual suns—and no one had come to investigate their sudden appearance. Not yet. It was a good thing too, because the blue TARDIS stuck out against the dark orange rock like a sore thumb. The Doctor had gone to check that they were in the right place before running right back inside and going up to Aleera's room to wait. He'd paced around for the first five minutes before dropping onto the floor and crossing his legs underneath him.

Rose, after having expressed concern for The Doctor's state of mind, remained by the door and just watched with her arms crossed under her chest and the tears still threatening to fall. The Doctor was surprised at how invested Rose had become, but he supposed having one of the last members of a race and the opportunity to help would be something anyone would become invested in. Neither of them had said anything in quite some time.

The Doctor wished he could have Rose's optimism. He wanted Aleera to wake up; he wanted to see her black and gold eyes again. He wanted to know that she wasn't angry for what he did to her. But he knew the chances were slim. She'd been asleep for two years, only kept alive by the TARDIS.

"She's not going to wake up," The Doctor said suddenly, his voice loud in the silence. "This was pointless. We should leave before we get attacked." The Doctor got to his feet and started for the door. Rose stepped into his path, effectively blocking his path. "Rose."

"She may still wake up! Why are you giving up?"

The Doctor's frown was deep and his eyes were dark, but he didn't say anything. For a long time, he just stood there and stared at Rose. He wanted to yell at her to get out of the way, but he couldn't do that. He wasn't mad at her. Eventually, he sighed and walked back to Aleera's side to stare down into the container. He was silent for a time longer, his hands resting on the see-through surface. "If you're going to wake up, Aleera, you should do it soon. We can't stay much longer. I'm sure they'll detect us if they haven't already, so you've got to wake up." He stared down at her, wiling her to move, but there was no response. "I want you to wake up," he whispered.

There was no response, except for an increasingly loud clanking that sounded like metallic footsteps. It was sudden and alarming.

"They've found us," The Doctor said. He straightened and looked around, but then bent back down and put his mouth as close as he could to the container without actually touching it and said, "Aleera you have got to wake up if you're going to do it—you've got to wake up." He opened his mouth to continue his pleading, but he stopped when her cocoon began to recede from around her. "Aleera!" he exclaimed, his voice breaking with surprise.

Rose approached and looked down, her eyes wide. The redhead was now lying on a platform uncovered and the colour was flooding back into her cheeks. "Go Doctor," Rose said. "Go and make sure we're safe. I'll stay with her."

But The Doctor didn't move. He was standing there, staring at Aleera.

She sucked in a deep breath, her chest rising a few inches off the platform before it fell into a natural rhythm. Her hands balled into fists and then straightened until it looked like her fingers were going to bend backwards at the joint. The Doctor moved forward in time to catch her when she flung herself upright and towards the edge of the bed. Her arms went around his neck and she searched for purchase with panicking hands. Her forehead pressed against his shoulder as she coughed, the noise sounding as if the gesture was tearing up her lungs. The Doctor put a hand on either shoulder and pushed her back when it passed so he could look her in her startling eyes: they were completely black except for a ring of gold where the iris would be on a human.

"Aleera," The Doctor breathed, his face displaying the shock and relief he felt.

It was then the clanking noise outside the TARDIS stopped and they could hear the whirring of many mechanical men waiting.

It felt as if a giant weight was being lifted from her chest and cotton was being pulled from her head. She could think, feel, hear, smell, taste and breathe. And when she opened her eyes she could see. She could see colours and blurry shapes and when the breath slammed into her chest and she sat up, she could see a man, a man who caught her, who wrapped his arms around her. She coughed violently, choking on the new air entering her body, her hands scrambling to find purchase on the man in front of her, on anything that she could grab. She had to feel secure, stable. She had to know she wasn't going to go back into the darkness.

"Aleera," the man breathed as he pushed her back and looked at her.

She narrowed her eyes, trying to make herself focus on the face. He seemed familiar somehow, but she had never seen him before. She raised a hand and touched his face, traced the lines of his cheeks, his lips. "I know you…"

"Yes, you do. You know me."

"I hate to interrupt," a new voice said. "But those metal men are standing outside and they don't look very happy. I think we should leave as soon as possible."

Aleera turned to look at the other person in the room, someone she hadn't noticed before, and frowned. She did not know the blonde woman, but she could tell by the look on her face that something was very wrong. The blonde also looked perfectly comfortable standing in the alien environment around her. The man got to his feet and stood in front of Aleera, his hands on her shoulders again. His attention on Aleera drew her eyes back to his face.

"Stay here, Aleera. I'll be right back."

It was then she heard a mechanical clicking, a sound she knew in her bones. It filled her with a new energy, with a desire to move. She wanted to see those machines. She wanted to touch them, but something told her that they were dangerous, that they would kill her if she got too close. But she could feel them even this far away. "Wait," she said as the man and woman started to leave the room. "Wait." She needed to get down there, get closer to those machines. Aleera could tell she was on her home planet, that she was close to the machines of the Old Keplaarians, but she wanted more.

"Yes?"

"I can help. I know how to hold them off. I can hold them off while we leave."

The man paused and seemed to think over the proposal. His thoughts were quick and he nodded. He helped Aleera off the table and held her hand as they went down a flight of stairs into the most bizarre room she'd ever seen. It was a room she knew, just like she knew the man's face. When the man stopped moving, she stopped and looked around, trying to figure out how she knew the room, but it wouldn't come to her.

Snapping back into the present, she moved towards the door and put her hands flat against it. She could feel the machines on the other side, the robots. These were machines she knew. She remembered these machines. They were the ones who had taken her home from her, from her people. The memories of the fighting flashed through her head and she snarled. She remembered the death, the screaming, the horror and she remembered a man who helped her. A man who took her away from it all. But she could deal with that later. Right now, she had some sentient machines to hold off. Aleera summoned up the natural ability inside her and pushed against the machines, kept them from getting closer. It was like flexing a muscle she hadn't used in a long time. It hurt, but she still knew how to use it. It felt good to use it after what had to be a long, long time.

She could feel the machines pushing against her power. "I can't hold them for long," she called over her should.

Whatever it was they were inside was filling with a humming; the engines were powering up. "We're almost ready!" the man told her. "Just another minute!"

Aleera pushed out harder with her ability, sparing one tendril to explore, to examine the machines. They had changed from what they were when last she'd been on her home planet. They were more advanced and they had changed their shape to look more humanoid, but Aleera could still feel the machine parts, still identify them. She knew the machines. The robots. She could pull them apart. A hot wave of anger filled her. These were the beings that had taken her home, had killed everyone she loved. She wanted to dismantle them.

So she started. The Keplaarian wound the tendril of power through the closest robot and began to twist things, move them so it would function. She felt the moment it stopped working, felt the moment it collapsed into its component parts on the rock. Aleera wanted to get down there and examine it, but she moved on and started dismantling the next one.

But they were pulling away.

She could feel the vehicle they were in pulling away and then she felt the connection break and they were too far away for her to do anything else. To get any more revenge.

Her home world and the machines were gone.

All of Aleera's energy and anger vanished and she dropped to the floor in a heap. "I… don't feel so well," she breathed.

The man was there. He picked her up, held her close and headed up to the room where she'd woken up, the blonde on his heels. When he set her down on the table again, she felt better. Stable. Her energy started to return. She closed her eyes and sighed, relieved. The surface she was sitting on was warm and comfortable and all she wanted to do was go to sleep.

"I don't want to go to sleep again," she said.

"I don't want you to go to sleep again, either."

When she opened her eyes again, the blonde woman was standing in the doorway looking at Aleera with a curious expression. She offered up a small smile and then left the room, leaving Aleera alone with the man she knew but couldn't name. Aleera recognized it for the gesture it was and she also knew that it was probably a difficult thing for the woman to do.

"Who are you?" she asked the man.

He took her hand and held it as he sat beside her on the table. "I am The Doctor."

"The Doctor… You looked different the last time I saw you. When you saved me."

"I did." He brushed some of her red, red hair out of her face and titled his head a little as he looked at her. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I did this to you, that I put you through this."

She wrapped her hand around his fingers and held his hand to her cheek. "Don't be, Doctor. You kept me alive. You and… the TARDIS."

"You remember," he said with a warm smile.

"I remember." Still holding on to his hand, she lowered it from her cheek. "I remembered when I was holding back those machines. I remember the fighting, the death… I remember you showing up in your TARDIS and doing everything you could to save us, and I remember asking you to take me with you when I realized there was nothing left on Keplaar." She squeezed his hand. "You took me with you. You saved me and you kept me alive. You have nothing to apologize for."

Mace had gone to sleep after The Doctor and her and finished talking. The Doctor was now sitting in front of the TARDIS' console, waiting for them to land back on Earth; it was the first, safest place he'd thought of. At least, that's what he'd told Rose. She believed him and she agreed with him. It had been a long time since she had seen her mother anyway.

"How's she doing?" Rose asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "She seems to be all right, but I won't know until she's awake and rested, and I don't know if she'll go back into a coma. Right now, she's just sleeping normally. While you're visiting your mother I'm going to see if I can find a way to keep her conscious without the help of the TARDIS."

"Will you have to go anywhere to do it?"

"Probably. Maybe." He looked at Rose and gave her an apologetic smile. "I will let you know if I'm going to leave. You can come with me if you want."

Rose nodded. The Doctor knew full well that Rose would want to come with him, so she didn't bother saying it out loud. "How are you even going to start looking for information about a race that's almost extinct?"

"There are some Keplaarians on other planets near their home world, but I'm going to see if the TARDIS has any information stored away on them before I go anywhere." The Doctor leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. "I'll have to help Aleera find a place to settle too, preferably with her own people, so I'll have to go there eventually, but first, first I need to talk to her and you should visit your mother."

"All right. Just let me know if there's anything you need me to do, Doctor."

"Thank you Rose."

The TARDIS landed shortly after that and Rose disembarked, giving The Doctor a quick hug as a goodbye. She went home, thinking about Mace and the Keplaarians and wondering if The Doctor would able to help the lost alien. If they would be able to find her a home and be able to keep her awake this far away from her machines. Against her normal mode of operation, Rose found that she liked Mace; her relationship with The Doctor, whatever it had been, didn't make Rose jealous, not like she had expected it to. Rose's mother wasn't home yet, so she sat on the couch and daydreamed about what the planet Keplaar may have been like beyond the walls of the TARDIS.

Aleera wasn't waking up. She hadn't reverted to the comatose state, and the cocoon hadn't closed back over her, but she wasn't waking up. The Doctor shook her gently, but she just moaned in her sleep and rolled towards him. He laughed a bit to himself and shook her again, a little more vigorously.

"Aleera, wake up."

"Five more minutes."

"Aleera, you've been asleep for two years."

She opened one black and gold eye and glared at him before a smile broke across her face. "Doctor, where are we?"

"We're on Earth. We'll be safe here while we try and figure out a way for you to live off your home world without going into a coma and while we find you a place to live."

"There's a Keplaarian colony on Beyar," she said without hesitation. "At least there was two years ago." Aleera sat up on the table and crossed her legs underneath her. The Doctor climbed on the platform and sat facing her, mirroring her posture. "The colony was built on a piece of the machinery from Keplaar that they towed between the planets with a mining ship. That's how they survive." She took The Doctor's hand when he offered it and gave it a small squeeze. "I don't know about the smaller colonies on the farther planets. They may just stay in their ships. I've only ever been to Beyar."

The Doctor took her other hand. "Would you live on Beyar?"

Aleera nodded. "I would."

"Well, we'll go to Beyar then!"

The Doctor's smile was wide and Aleera warmed at the sight of it. She remembered seeing that smile before and she remembered the feeling it gave her. She remembered the connection she'd felt to The Doctor during those few days when they'd fought to save as many of the Keplaarians as they could. She returned the smile and squeezed his hands again.

"What about keeping me conscious while we're in the TARDIS?" she asked.

The Doctor looked puzzled on that account, but there was a glint in his brown eyes. "I have an idea."

"Well I'll try anything."

"All right then," he said as he slid off the table. "Come with me."

The pair moved back to the console room. The Doctor moved Aleera's hand onto the console using his own. The material succumbed to her touch and little tendrils of it wrapped around her fingers. She felt great and she smiled at The Doctor to let him know it was working. She tried to move and it let her. She could pull away and come back and the TARDIS would accept her, give her energy.

"What… why is it doing this?" she asked, surprised.

"The TARDIS is a sentient machine. It's more complex than anything else in the universe." The Doctor moved a little closer to her, smiling his wide, wonderful smile. "You have a gift with the machines and the TARDIS recognizes that. From what I can tell, your relationship to the machines is based on your life force. The TARDIS has a life force for you to connect with."

"Why didn't this work last time?"

The Doctor shrugged. One of his hands was moving along the controls of the TARDIS as he usually did. "There have been some upgrades in the past little while. Plus, you've been part of the TARDIS for two years. It knows you now."

"It's a beautiful thing."

They shared a smile. "Well," The Doctor said, "this worked out phenomenally well; better than I could have expected." Aleera nodded her agreement. "What should we do now that we know you'll survive the trip?"

"I'd like to make that trip," Aleera said. She had moved closer to The Doctor. So close, they were almost touching. She put his forehead on his shoulder and he wrapped an arm around her. They had stood like this, almost in the exact same spot, back when he looked different and she was freshly severed from her home. "I've been away from my people for two years. I have to see if the colony is still on Beyar."

"And if they're not?" he asked quietly.

"I'll worry about that when I have to," Aleera whispered. "But I've got to try. I've got no real desire to wander around—I don't know how you do it, Doctor. I need a home."

He looked down at her; it was a little awkward because they were both still touching the TARDIS console. "This is my home and I'm not always alone. I travel with people from time to time, like Rose." He sighed. "But it does get lonely." He leaned his head on top of hers. "It does get lonely." They stood in silence for another minute before The Doctor pulled away. "I've got to tell Rose we're heading for Beyar."

"Do… do you think she might be able to stay here while we check out Beyar?" Aleera asked quietly.

The Doctor's eyes widened, but then he nodded. "Yes. Of course. I'll be back in a few minutes."

"It's different."

"Of course it's different."

"But… it's the same."

The Doctor laughed and watched Aleera take a few steps forward towards the settlement. Her black and gold eyes scanned the buildings. They were tall and narrow like the ones back on Keplaar, but there were differences, changes brought on by the warmer and lusher climate. She could see balconies and bridges arching between the spires and the gold-tinged metal was patched with cooler, blue and silver metals. The section of Keplaarian architecture was there, but it wasn't a part of any Keplaar city anymore. It was very much a part of the Beyarite city they were standing in.

There were a few Keplaarians standing nearby, watching her and all of them looked shocked at her appearance. None of them had approached because she hadn't ventured far enough away from The Doctor to invite strangers to get close. She scanned each of them quickly, but then turned back to The Doctor.

"You'll come and visit?" she asked.

"I will if I can, Aleera."

She took a few steps back towards him, her black robes swishing around her feet. "You know you're the only one I ever let call me Aleera."

"The only one?" He reached forward and pulled her hand into his.

"The only one. You were the only person I ever felt close to and we were only together for a few days, maybe a week." She cocked her head to one side, her red hair cascading over her shoulder. "I feel like I know you... All of your incarnations. The Doctor I got to know, you… and I can see flashes of others, other faces… I guess they're all you, but they all feel so different."

"I am different in every incarnation. It's like this place: the same, but changed, ever so slightly."

"You're my favourite."

The Doctor beamed at her and hugged her again. She'd been awake for just about two days. "Goodbye my Aleera. I'll always remember you as the girl who lived in the TARDIS."

Aleera laughed and hugged The Doctor back. She kissed his cheek and then, quickly, his lips. "Goodbye my Doctor."

Author's Note:

I apologize if I missed a few typos or mistakes. It's late and my brain isn't seeing them anymore. I just wanted to get this out before I change my mind.

So, how about a review? Please? I'll give you all cookies if you review!