I Like it Here

by Archive1494559

Chameleon circuits don't just break themselves, you know. The events leading up to 'An Unearthly Child', from the TARDIS' point of view. One-shot.

I Like it Here

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Over and over, holding a steady rhythm, in sync with the beat of the universe. And then, slowly, I shift. My breathing quickens slightly, slips into a different tempo, and I fade out of the time vortex and into reality.

'We have arrived!' My Doctor announces, his voice at once stern and excitable. It's a voice I've grown very used to over the years; I know every subtle quirk of speech, every inflection. He exits, and the young girl Susan follows after him. I'm left alone. But I'm used to that; I can use this time to get a better impression of my surroundings.

I've been left in what appears to be a junkyard. There's a small shack that might be the owner's office, but apart from that everything I can see is scrap. The yard is piled high with squares of riveted metal, chairs and tables, rusted stepladders, bicycles without wheels and battered car frames. Tin pots are piled high in one corner, next to a large sign that reads I.M. Foreman – Scrap Merchant – 76 Totter's Lane.

So that solves the 'where' in the mystery of my location. The 'when', however, is still open to interpretation. I could always use my temporal scanners to ascertain a pinpoint accurate time, but where's the fun in that? Where's the excitement, the suspense? I didn't run away from home with a Time Lord at my helm so I could read statistics and calculate complex figures.

Hang on. What's that? My scanners swivel inwards as I try to get a better look at the flash of blue they picked up, just for a moment. They settle, and I find myself looking at something rather extraordinary. Is that... Me?

I'm a blue box, several feet tall, made from what appears to be wood. There's a heavy lamp atop my head, that even now flickers dimly. My paint looks shiny and new; the chameleon circuit's transformation has left my outward exterior, as always, in the best possible condition, so I look brand new. I'm not sure exactly what object I've been metamorphosed to resemble, though a small sign on one of my doors gives me a clue;

Police Telephone

FREE

For use of

PUBLIC

Advice & Assistance

Obtainable Immediately

Officers & Cars

Respond to all calls

Pull to Open

I'm not quite sure what a police telephone box is, but that's what I am now. I don't know why, but the sight of myself as this tall wooden box fills me with a warm sense of familiarity. I'm quite certain I've never seen one of these before, but nonetheless my innards glow with a feeling of belonging as I scan my outer shell.

I wonder, briefly, if these are memories of the future, rather than the past, that I'm experiencing. Most life forms only have one-way memories, but when you can breathe in sync with the time vortex, you clearly can't be categorised under 'most life forms'. Every TARDIS has the ability, to some extent or another, to remember the future as many species do the past; right now, I feel as though this form, this shape, this blue box, is an important piece of my future.

As I'm considering these thoughts, my Doctor returns with Susan in his wake. He's blithering on about some trouble they've encountered on their stroll, while she's examining a small metal box with some curiosity. As they walk through the scrap yard, I listen carefully to their conversation.

'...Ridiculous! Simply ridiculous. I say we leave here and now. What do you think of that, eh?'

'But grandfather,' Susan says, exasperated. 'I like it here. I want to stay – just for a while!'

He grumbles to himself as he unlocks my doors and steps into the control room. Susan follows him, still fiddling with the box in her hands. It looks like some sort of portable radio.

All of a sudden, I'm struck by an urgent need to stop them from leaving. I always land where my Doctor needs to be, where there's trouble to be resolved. But for some reason, I don't feel like his purpose here has been fulfilled. It's there again, on the edge of my consciousness, the vague imprint left behind by a memory of the future. Two figures, standing alongside my Doctor and Susan. One man, one woman. The man stands tall, with a square mess of black hair, and a wry smile on his face. The woman has a much wider, more sincere smile on her lips, and short hair that falls only to just above her shoulders. These strangers stand at my console, beside the two travellers I have known for so long, my Doctor and Susan. Together, the four of them seem happy, content, complete.

My Doctor needs to stay here, I realise, so he can meet these people. Because if I'm remembering rightly – and TARDISes always are – then they will soon become a huge part of his life.

Quickly, I try to think of a way to keep my Doctor here, in I.M. Foreman's junkyard, until he encounters these two friends to be. I look deep into the subroutines of my vital systems, processes and programs essential to keeping my breathing regular – to keeping my ability to move through the dimensions unimpaired. There, the fragment links; oops, look at that, I've snapped them. The atomic accelerator? I just twist that dial a little to the left, and it's been rendered inoperable. Perfect. Finally, I cross over the chameleon circuit. An indescribably complex series of minute electrical currents, jolting back and forth between trillions and trillions of nano-recievers. It can scan every inanimate object in a thousand mile radius and calculate a perfect disguise for my outer shell to assume in less than half a second. But if I just squeeze that switch there a little too tightly... There. The damage is done. Chameleon circuits don't just break themselves, you know, but with a bit of input from myself, they can be damaged with remarkable ease.

Now I'm broken. Not beyond repair, but it will take my Doctor some time to cobble together the right pieces and figure out all the problems. Long enough for him to bump into these two strangers who mean so much to him and his future. Long enough for his purpose here, at 76 Totter's Lane, to be fulfilled.

I'd never admit it, but there's another reason I'm eager for my Doctor to stay here. It feels like a special place to me. There's something in the way that 'I.M. Foreman' resonates in my matrix, the way the name bounces around in what most people would call my mind. This junkyard seems like the kind of place where adventures are born, where great things begin and impossible things occur. It feels like the start of something very, very special. That's not another future memory, hinting at what's coming next. That's just my intuition.

I agree with Susan. I like it here.

A/N: Thank you very much for reading! I had an idea that the chameleon circuit didn't break of its own accord - the TARDIS broke it deliberately, because it liked the shape it took when it landed in 1963. This story grew from that idea. Please leave a review if you enjoyed reading it (or even if you didn't; I appreciate constructive criticism). And, once again, thanks for reading.