Chapter 1: Broken TARDIS—Again
A tall, lean, and rather dashing young man called the Doctor tinkered about with the controls of his time traveling spaceship. He had an extreme intensity about him with his dark eyes staring forward at the various diagnostic screens; throwing a look over his shoulder at the empty chair where his former companion Martha would sit before she found she couldn't stand seeing people dying anymore—much like his dear friend, Tegan….
No! Now is not the time to look back. I must look into the future he thought to himself, straightening out his blue suit jacket briskly; brushing an uneasy hand through his unkempt blown-away brown hair; keeping his brain turned off to the memories aching to flood past the gates.
A loud warning bell sounded from the machine's computer as a number of the lights started flickering erratically then shut off.
Promptly pivoting on his converse heels, the Doctor studied the vast data before him blinking, beeping, and begging for attention. "Drat!" he spat, smacking the mainframe bitterly; tearing away to the other control center within the labyrinth of rooms in the TARDIS he set up in one of his previous incarnations. Ripping open the panel connecting to the hardware that ran his blasted machine, pulling out a small shattered crystal the color of fresh blood, he groaned. "No! No! No!" He moaned, punctuating each word with a heated but rather pointless slap to the computer, "The Tempus Crystal is broken!" Instantly, his mind went to work to think of a solution. "That was my last one--!" He sighed dejectedly, slamming himself down childishly; having his own version of a fit, "Damn that Master and his tinkering. Blast him for getting away again!"
Well it was supposed to last for a thousand years his mind slammed back moodily. It ran him through the memory of repairing the same problem previously, maybe twenty or so years ago.
"Doctor?" a haughty beauty with a cut little dark pixy cut asked timidly, still rather bewildered by the rather erratic behavior of this new incarnation; finally fixed on his personality and habits. She cut an alluring figure with her lovely dark eyes, long legs and her cute little purple stewardess outfit she first stumbled into the TARDIS in.
"Yes?" He replied popping up his endearingly sweet face with a lovely blonde mop from under the hardware (back in his fifth incarnation) as he was dressed in a nice and normal cricket outfit (with a piece of celery pinned on of course).
"Watcha doing exactly?" she pipped curiously as the impish red-headed figure of Turlough kicked back with a tattered book titled "Mainly Mostly" stamped in big green script across the front nonconclusively.
"Well," he replied in a calm, measured manner that most teachers get when explaining the fact that rabbits and lions are not a good idea for a "buddy system", "I'm just replacing an old Tempus Crystal that broke from age with a new one so we can get back to our journey."
"What's a Tempus Crystal do, Doctor?" Turlough inquired with a raised eyebrow as he looked over his book.
"Well," he said, sitting back up to converse properly, "It's a very rare crystal found on the planet Hadju Prime that controls the fluctuations that happen as we travel through time. The Spatium Crystal controls space such as between me and yourselves or as great as here to Gallifrey at the edge of time and space."
"Simply smashing!" Tegan drawled sarcastically, "If one of these little rocky things breaks we're stuck!" steamed the ever lovely hothead.
" Well we won't have to worry about that for about another millennia or so, so no worries! Here you can have the extra one if you fancy." The charming Time Lord smiled his lovable grin, pressing the spare stone into her hands before returning to his work.
"Thanks Doctor!" She clamored happily, carefully placing it in her pocket.
The current Doctor's eye's shot open- brought back to the present with a jerk, "That's it!" he declared to no one in particular. He burst to his feet, running to the main control room at top speed.
Doing his thing: he shifted various levers and hit the correct buttons; heading a course to the present just outside of London. "I'll just get the crystal back from Tegan!" he let the memories pour of his times with her, not forgetting when she showed him the crystal-turned-into-a-pendant before she left, "Just hope she still lives there."