Hello, friends! I was recently in a writer's block, so if you read my other stories, I'm sorry I haven't updated in a while. I promise I'll get back to them, ASAP. However, this drabble came about when I was talking to my friends about the TARDIS's actual weight, and how the Doctor said "If the TARDIS were to land with its true weight, it would fracture the surface of the Earth." And Clara responds with "Yeah, maybe a story for another time." (Flatline, Season 8). Well, this is the story of how the TARDIS landed with her actual weight! Enjoy and comment if there are any errors! Thanks!
*Takes place in between the End of the World and the Unquiet Dead*
The TARDIS was crashing. Rose was scared because she'd never been in a free falling TARDIS before, and the Doctor was embarrassed, because he promised Rose he'd take her to the past, not crash the TARDIS. "Hang on, hang on, we'll straighten this out!" the Doctor ran around the TARDIS console, pushing buttons and pulling levers and reading the Gallifreyan on the console's screen to try and at least land them safely. Rose was too busy hanging on to the coral pillars to do much of anything, even though she wanted to help. She hated being a damsel in distress.
Suddenly, the old time machine made a skidding noise, like a car braking too hard and the whole console room flipped upside down, throwing the Doctor and his companion onto the ceiling. The engine cut off instantly, leaving only the deathly silence and the labored breathing of the two time travelers. With a brief thump, the console room fell sideways and the whole TARDIS was still. "Doctor?" said Rose, "What happened?" the Doctor stood up, brushing his black leather jacket. "Sorry about that. From what I saw from the readings, it looks like some kind of energy-don't know what- caught the TARDIS off guard as we were flying through it. That's why we crashed." the Doctor walked over and helped Rose up. "So can't you fix it?" she asked. "I can, but that's not our main problem right now." he looked up. "Getting up there is." Unfortunately for them, the TARDIS landed on its side, doors facing up, so the pair had to figure out a way to the doors, which currently lay a few good meters above them.
"Hang on," said the Doctor, jumping into a nearby hallway, "I think I have something right around here... AHA!" The alien pulled out a thick bundle of what looked like fabric and tossed it to Rose, who caught it with ease. "A scarf?" She looked at the long, colorfully striped masterpiece with slight uncertainty. "Are you sure THIS is going to help get us out of here?" "Excuse me, but a good friend of mine knit that for me a long time ago, and besides, it's a lot sturdier than you'd think! Here's another one. Tie those together, will ya?" the Doctor tossed Rose a darker striped scarf that was just as long as the first and she tied them together. With some effort and lots of throwing, the Doctor was able to get the elongated scarf tied around the cylinder in the middle of the console so he and Rose could climb up. Once they were straddling the sideways tube, the Doctor was able to get a look at the console's screen. "Well, good news is we're on Earth." said the Doctor with a big grin. "What's the bad news?" asked Rose as she undid the scarf around the console. "The bad news is that I think we've flattened a city..." "WHAT?! How?" "Well that energy we hit? That combined with the initial crash knocked out the TARDIS's weight stabilizer." the Doctor rubbed his face and gave a frustrated sigh. "What's a weight stabilizer?" "You know how the TARDIS is bigger on the inside? The stabilizer makes sure the weight of the TARDIS is equal to how it looks on the outside." "So the TARDIS would weigh as much as a Police Box?" "Right. Or at least it should. If the TARDIS landed with her true weight, she would put a huge dent in the Earth's crust. Unfortunately, I think that's what we did. Let's get outside and check out the damage." "I hope it isn't bad," muttered Rose.
The pair finally managed to get out of the TARDIS and they were shocked at what they saw. They seemed to be at the bottom of the ocean. "This is new," the Doctor said, looking around with raised eyebrows. "Why isn't the TARDIS filling with water?" "Oxygen field. Glad that wasn't destroyed, too." The Doctor quickly tied the long scarf-rope to a nearby coral and went back into the TARDIS to fix the weight stabilizer. As soon as he was done, he asked Rose to push the TARDIS back upright, which wasn't hard since Police Boxes weren't that heavy. When Rose skipped back into the TARDIS with the scarf (that was tied around the coral) she saw the Doctor looking solemnly at the screen. "What wrong, Doctor?" "That city we flattened? I know which one it was." "Which was it? London?" "No. Atlantis." "Couldn't we have stopped it? Prevented it?" Rose asked, concerned. "No. It was a fixed point in time. Besides, even if we did go back and try to fix it I'd be crossing my own time stream, which would NOT be good. Anyway, where were we off to? Ah yes, Christmas, in the 1800's!" and they were off.