Shelter, a doctor who fanfic

The Master. Mara. Cybermen. There'd been enough of them lately, that dreadful bunch.

The Doctor leant back in a chair which he'd brought into the console room and quietly read a book on the history of ecological studies. The only sound was the gentle hum of the TARDIS as it made its way through the time vortex. Things could get decidedly grim at times, but those peaceful, quiet, nice moments were what it was all about.

As he got to the end of the chapter, he closed the book and gently placed it down on the chair as he walked towards the console. After flicking a few switches and checking a few readings, he set the TARDIS to materialise in half an hour Their recent 'adventures' had left Nyssa and Tegan in need of a much deserved rest, not to mention himself, and so the Doctor had set the coordinates for a small village in the heart of England. They could have a nice spot of tea in one of the tea rooms, appreciate some beautiful architecture and have an all-round lovely time.

"Doctor," said Nyssa, announcing her presence in the console room.

"Ah, Nyssa," he replied giving her a quick smile. "Good morning."

"Doctor," Nyssa said again, "Tegan's gone."

"Gone?" he said, his face dropping. "Gone where?"

"I don't know. This morning she wasn't in her bed and I can't find her anywhere. We must find her." She was clearly very concerned.

"Well, she can't have gotten far," he said, hoping to provide some reassurance. "She must still be on board the TARDIS. Let's go and look for her."

"But those corridors go on for ages!" she replied. "She could be very lost."

"Well, we'd better get looking for her straight away then," he said.

This wasn't going well at all. They'd been wandering through the TARDIS for some time and they'd still made no sight of Tegan. The Doctor hoped that Nyssa wouldn't become agitated, he was confident they'd come across her sooner or later, he just wasn't sure of any more efficient way of finding her.

"Which way now, Doctor?" asked Nyssa as they got to a fork in the corridor.

"That way," the Doctor said confidently, pointing to the left.

Nyssa looked at him, a slight frown on her face. What was wrong with going left?

"Uh, on second thoughts," he said, slightly flustered by the unexpected conflict, "how about this way?"

They both went right.

"What do you think can have happened?" she asked.

"Well, I'm afraid it may be a case of somnambulism."

"Sleepwalking?"

"Yes. It's not like Tegan to just wander off like this is it? It's probably an unfortunate side-effect of that business with the Mara. But if that is the case, I expect she's just walking around in the corridors like we are."

"Just how big is the inside of the TARDIS, Doctor?" asked Nyssa.

"I don't really know," he said.

Before the conversation continued, the pair of them noticed an open door a little ahead of them. The idea that Tegan may have wandered through there must have occurred to both of them at the same time, they were both rather like-minded, the Doctor often thought.

As they passed through the door they came out in an open field. In the distance, there was a forest, a lake, and a small village. The hum of the TARDIS was also gone, replaced with the sounds of a gentle breeze and the tweeting of birds. What an odd sensation. He looked to Nyssa and realised that if he thought it was strange, she might be struggling to take it in.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"We're still inside the TARDIS," he said, only partly sure that he was correct. "It has the power to adjust its internal design to virtually anything, including landscapes that may appear to be very natural."

"But why?"

"I'm not entirely sure. I've never come across this place before, but I'm certainly keen to get to the bottom of this, and hopefully we'll find Tegan in the process."

"'Hopefully'?" she echoed.

"Well, the way back's just here on this hill," he said, gesturing to the TARDIS door on the side of the hill which lead to the more familiar white corridors.

"Who lives in that village?" asked Nyssa.

"That's exactly what I hope to find out!"

As they got into the centre of the village, it all seemed to be quite deserted. Perhaps nobody lived here after all? In fact, it was rather irrational to assume that anybody did live here. After all, he didn't think it was likely that one person could be aboard the TARDIS without his knowing, let alone a whole community.

A group of five armed men holding swords emerged from a nearby building, pointing their weapons in the direction of the Doctor and Nyssa.

"Ah," said the Doctor. These days, this kind of situation was nothing more than a mild annoyance.

"More strangers," said one of them.

"Does that mean you've had somebody else come through here?" he asked, as politely as possible.

"Quiet!"

"It's just that a friend of ours has gone missing and we wondered if she might have stumbled upon your little village."

"You know that shouty woman?" he asked.

"Sounds like Tegan," the Doctor said to Nyssa. Her look of disapproval left him with a tinge of guilt. He turned back to the guard who'd addressed them. "Uh, yes, if you've had another stranger visit it was probably our friend."

Tegan sat alone in her drafty cell. She could remember relaxing in the TARDIS after their latest trip and that was about it. The next thing she knew she'd suddenly been standing in the middle of a village with a group of angry people shouting at her. Normal people didn't have to put up with this kind of nonsense. It's just what happens when you know the Doctor. Sometimes she wondered whether the benefits of life in the TARDIS really outweighed the downsides.

A guard walked in along with the Doctor and Nyssa.

"I wondered when you'd turn up," she said, eyeballing the Doctor.

"Hello, Tegan," he said meekly.

"You lot can stay here while we decide what to do with you," the guard said and left.

"Something tells me we're not going to like your decision," he replied. So smug. He always had to have the last word.

"So what's going on then?" asked Tegan. She was fed up, the Doctor owed her an explanation.

"I'm afraid that even I don't really know this time." He gave an apologetic smile.

"A lot of good you are," she replied, folding her arms.

"Well, I'm sorry. I think you were probably sleeping walking and wandered all the way out to this part of the TARDIS."

"But we're not in that TARDIS." He was starting to get annoying.

"Yes, we are, Tegan," he said, his voice grave.

"Flippin' heck. I guess this thing's even bigger than I thought," she said, rolling her eyes. He could have warned them that they were liable to get lost in a village in their own home.

"It's not the size that concerns me," he said, "I don't know who any of these people are, or how they got here."

"Couldn't we have passed through a worm hole, Doctor?" asked Nyssa.

"No, impossible. Unless it were artificially created, there's no way one would appear in the TARDIS like that. Besides, Time Lords have a very special link with their TARDISes, I can feel that we haven't left her."

"So all this time we've been living in the TARDIS, this village has been here too?" Nyssa asked.

"Well, judging by the looks of some of the things here, this village has is well over a hundred years old. It's not impossible that things could be artificially created to look aged, but to the perceptive eye it's quite clear that this is the real thing. Some time ago people must have settled in the TARDIS and started their own community."

"But surely that's impossible," said Nyssa.

"Over the years I've come to realise that the 'impossibility' of many things is greatly exaggerated."

Tegan hated it when the Doctor and Nyssa talked about science. It was so inconsiderate. They knew she was no expert and anything she said was likely to be proven wrong. She'd seen those Cosmos documentaries a while ago, but she didn't really remember very much of them, and even if she did, it was probably nursery stuff to those two.Sometimes she wondered if the Doctor intentionally brought the subject up to exclude her from conversation.

"So where do you think they came from?" she asked. At least she could still give him questions to answer, she thought somewhat bitterly.

"Well, they certainly look like humans to me, but then so many species do, so it may be a little presumptuous to assume that is the case. But then again, the architecture certainly suggests humanity too, so it may be the safest bet."

"But what're all these humans doing here?" none of it really made any sense to her, but she had a feeling the Doctor was already piecing it together.

"Unfortunately I don't quite know," he said, and she thought he seemed to be quite sad about it.

"Well, what do we do now then?"

"We wait," he said and then smiled.

"Wonderful."

They had been sitting in there for well over an hour. The Doctor was quite used to sitting around in unpleasant old prison cells, but he could tell his companions were both becoming a little agitated. He couldn't help but feel a little sad about it. His past-self had always been so good at keeping the atmosphere light, but it was an ability he seemed to have lost in the regeneration process. Which was a shame, because his desire to comfort them seemed to have grown considerably at the same time, now all he could provide were some comforting words or a pat on the back.

"Get up," said a guard.

None of them had noticed that he'd come in.

"Have you decided what you're going to do with us?" the Doctor asked as he got to his feet.

"Get out and follow me," he said.

Not in the mood for conversation, the three of them rose wordlessly and were escorted into a village square. A few stunned villagers watched from the distance. The Doctor noticed that a gallows had been erected in the middle of the town. With three nooses too. He hoped that both his companions wouldn't notice and, most importantly, that it wasn't there for them.

"Doctor-" Tegan started to speak, and he knew she'd spotted it.

"Don't worry," he said.

The three of them were made to stand before a line of guards and somebody official looking was brought before them by two fancier looking guards of his own.

"I am Geoffrey, ruler of Tardis," he announced to them.

"Is Tardis the name of this village then?" the Doctor asked, becoming more intrigued by the moment.

"Yes, of course it is," replied Geoffrey.

"How very interesting," the Doctor muttered.

"And Tardis is home only for those who have been chosen to live here. The only suitable punishment for trespassers is death," he said. The Doctor thought he detected a hint of uncertainty in his voice.

"But we haven't done anything!" Nyssa insisted.

"No outsiders are permitted in Tardis," Geoffrey reaffirmed.

"You've never actually had to enforce this law before though, have you? It may seem all good and reasonable when it's written down in your law books, but when it comes to putting innocent people to death, can you really do it? I'd wager that—"

The Doctor stopped talking because he'd spotted something which had left him speechless. Outside of the church, there was a statue which was very clearly supposed to represent the Doctor's first incarnation.

"That statue," he said. "Of what significance is the man that it's based on?"

"That is our God. He and his granddaughter are the true owners and protectors of this world."

"And what would you do if I were to tell you that that man and I are the very same person?"

"Must be one of the Doctor's other regenerations," Tegan whispered to Nyssa.

Nyssa nodded in reply.

"You look nothing like that man," he said, laughing. "And if you really are God, why not simply use your powers to free yourself?"

"Because I'm not a God," the Doctor said. "I'm a Time Lord, and you people are all living inside my dimensionally transcendental time ship. This world isn't real! But I can take you to a real world, let you get out there and discover new things all for yourselves."

"I don't understand any of your lies," said Geoffrey. "Now it's time to accept your fate."

"You've got to believe me!" the Doctor said frantically as he, Tegan and Nyssa were lead up to the gallows. "I can prove it to you!"

He put his fingers to his temples and began to concentrate. He was attempting to establish a psychic connection to the TARDIS's neural relays. But the TARDIS was so unreliable when it came to that kind of thing and he was growing increasingly concerned. He wasn't so worried for himself. Definitely, his current self would be killed. Could he regenerate with a broken neck? Probably. But that wasn't important. What was important was getting Nyssa and Tegan out of this alive. The thought of them being hung inside his own TARDIS was absolutely horrible. He was not going to lose another companion. Not after Adric. The nooses were around everyone's neck now and one of the men was getting ready to pull the lever. He had to concentrate.

Somebody was reading from a book. Was he reading their last rites? No, he couldn't focus on that. He had to connect to the TARDIS. He had to connect to the TARDIS. The thunder in his chest as both hearts were beating away at a mile a minute was almost unbearable.

There was a sound of a snap. Was it too late? No! A computer terminal had pushed its way up through the ground and gallows and was now directly in front of the Doctor. Everyone, including the executioner, stopped to look.

The Doctor let out a huge breath and put his hand to his forehead. That was too close.

"Now do you believe me?" he asked.

"What is that?" asked Geoffrey.

"This can give me access to the TARDIS database. This can prove that I'm not lying. Come and look."

Geoffrey walked up onto the gallows as the Doctor removed the noose from around his neck (Nyssa and Tegan doing likewise). The guards seemed not to object.

He typed away at the keyboard and then, as Geoffrey looked at the screen, a 3D image of his first incarnation appeared on the screen and rotated while a fact box with the name 'Doctor' appeared just to the right. After a second or two, it morphed into the scruffy, friendly looking second incarnation, then the dashing, velvet jacket wearing third, the wild, long-scarved fourth and finally his current incarnation. It then quickly began changing through all five.

"I am sorry," said a bewildered Geoffrey. "I should not have doubted you."

"No hard feelings." The Doctor smiled at him. "Now, let's see where exactly you came from, shall we?"

Nyssa and Tegan watched him wordlessly. He hoped that they understood that the situation had now been defused.

"According to this, some people wandered into the TARDIS and started living in this area while the TARDIS was on Earth in nineteen sixty-three. I think I begin to understand now."

"Where have these people come from, Doctor?" asked Nyssa.

"Well, my grand-daughter Susan and I lived on Earth in that period for several months." He tried not to convey too much emotion as he said that, but the memory of those times, and of how he had cut Susan out of his life filled him with sadness. "I was a little forgetful in those days," he continued, "and it's not impossible that there were times that the TARDIS was left unlocked and unattended. Now, it doesn't take a genius to put the pieces together does it? Twentieth century Earth had some terrible poverty problems, and it's not inconceivable that a homeless person would have been drawn to the TARDIS after hearing its unusual hum. Then, all of a sudden, they find themselves a huge, warm shelter and with food machines to provide them with everything they need. This person would doubtlessly have told his friends and a whole community of homeless people could have moved into here in only a short space of time.

"Doubtlessly they will have noticed when my first incarnation lived there and would have wanted to stay out of his way. I have to admit that I was a little grouchy back then and I can easily imagine them delving deeper and deeper into the TARDIS in order to avoid him. This whole 'outside' area must have been generated by the TARDIS as an attempt by her to make the place more comfortable and familiar to the new occupants. That was already five hundred years ago from my perspective, and it's not impossible that they could have been caught in a time bubble, this deep in the TARDIS. This community could have been around for thousands of years by now, and the actual truth behind their arrival may well have been lost in myth. So, Geoffrey, after all this time, I can get you and your people back to the real world!"

Many of the people who had come to see the execution (and some of the guards too) stood and listened in awe to the Doctor's story.

"Doctor," Geoffrey sounded very hesitant, "this place is our home. Our families have lived here for generations. To have us all leave it, it would be horrible for us."

"Oh yes, of course," replied the Doctor. "But you can't continue to live a life that is really nothing more than an illusion."

"It's the only life we know."

"Wait!" the Doctor said, excitedly. "If I can reconfigure the dematerialisation codes, I should be able to transport you from in here to the nearest uninhabited, liveable planet. Your whole village would go along with you. It would be as if nothing had changed, expect for the first time in your lives you will truly be free."

"Then on behalf of my people, I accept your offer," said Geoffrey.

The Doctor quickly typed away at his terminal and then the loud and ancient sound of the TARDIS dematerialisation started up. Around them, the village, and the people, slowly began to vanish into thin air.

What the Doctor hadn't realised was that the gallows would also be dematerialising so he, Nyssa and Tegan all fell to the ground in a heap. He was worried they'd be annoyed, but when he heard Tegan laughing he knew everything was alright.

The countryside scenery slowly faded away and was replaced by the TARDIS's white corridors.

"How long do think it will take us to make our way back?" asked Tegan.

"Not too long, hopefully," the Doctor replied happily.

"Doctor," said Nyssa, "do you think there could be anything else inside the TARDIS that you don't know about?"

"We'll have to wait and see…"