Casino TARDIS

Disclaimer: This piece of surrealness belongs entirely to me! Sarah and Dilys belong to me! Every character belongs to me! Except the Doctor and the TARDIS and Rose and Jack…but everything else is mine! All mine!

Notes: Oh dear goodness…this is quite a turn for me as it's sad and strange and surreal. OK, maybe I do the last one quite a lot. Anywho, this story was inspired from a dream. So don't blame me, blame my subconscious. When I wrote the first chapter of this I was unaware of the Looms and sterility of the Time Lords (although I'm not sure of all the details, can someone help me out? Or was this just fiction?). I recently learnt this from rebeccazoe…thanks. But I'm posting it anyway.

You want a summary? Sure, I can do that. The TARDIS is abandoned in a warehouse after what was a very very bad day for everyone concerned. And no one came looking for it. Or if they did, no one found it. And there was someone on board the TARDIS. A little girl.

Now the warehouse is being converted into a casino of all things, and the TARDIS's lonely existence is threatened. And in the midst of all this change is a girl trying her best to grow up and find out what happened to her parents on that very bad day.

Read on gentle readers…

There are no Mary Sues in my work. None at all. So don't claim there are. I know what Mary Sues are and I don't write them. So there.

Huzzahs to Roy the reader, Tear the faithful and Banshee the excitable reviewer.

…………………………………………………………………………………………

As she pulled up in front of the structurally sound but long abandoned warehouse, Sarah Billings wondered what she was getting herself into. In truth, it was to be a lot more than what she hoped would one day be a successful casino.

At the moment, the warehouse was what it had been for the past ten years: an empty shell. A decade ago it was rumoured the place had been a black market for strange or 'cursed' objects and peculiar drugs, a rumour that had made the place unsuccessful with buyers. Most of them had also heard of the 'lost girl', a child ghost that scared away even the biggest toughest dealers from the unloved building on the outskirts of London.

Sarah was made of sterner stuff. She described herself a being from the 'wildest wilds' of Texas. She as a born business woman who was bored with America, and she had come to London looking for something different. And to fill the gap she saw in the economy for 'really really big money makin' casinos'.

But now, as she surveyed the large but somehow pitiful building, she was beginning to have doubts. How profitable would it be to build a casino from scratch, this far from the centre of London? Sarah was not someone who had 'more money than sense'—she had not yet bought the site. But she was fully determined and had her heart set on making this work.

The door slid open with a screech, coating Sarah with a thin layer of rust. As she brushed herself off, she peered into the gloom. Sarah was twenty-something years old: old enough, in her eyes, to be pretty unshakable. Even then, she gasped.

Amidst the battered crates of long-forgotten loot, was the ghostly white figure of a young girl. She was wearing a worn Victorian looking dress, and she was skipping. These things were not greatly alarming. Sure, there was the obvious question: why was there a little girl playing by herself in an abandoned warehouse? But there were more pressing, more frightening things on Sarah's mind.

One thing was that the girl was singing in a language Sarah had never heard before and did not understand. This was something unheard in any continent or country of Earth you could care to mention. This was other-worldly, a strange, eerie, mystical sound. Sarah found it difficult to separate any actual words. It was just noise. Beautiful, terrifying noise.

And Sarah's mind was busy working on an explanation for this also. Maybe the girl had simply made it up.

But she found it hard to explain away the alarming presence of a large, old looking blue box. It looked something like a telephone box, but Sarah had never seen a blue telephone box, and it was completely the wrong size. And how the heck had it got here? Surely it was too big and heavy for anyone to carry, or for anyone to move it to sell on a black market. A child could certainly never move it here.

But it seemed to belong to the child. Every now and then she would stop skipping and look at it quietly, as though listening to something no one else could here. This frightened Sarah most of all.

Suddenly, the child seemed to notice Sarah's presence. For a moment, they looked at each other across the warehouse. Then the girl dropped her skipping rope and scampered inside the blue box. Sarah was intrigued. She didn't feel like running away just yet. Instead, heart hammering, she crossed the warehouse to within three metres of the box. She was close enough now to read the signs on it. The one at the very top read POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.

Sarah paused. What now? she thought. More than anything she wanted to leave the warehouse and get as far away as possible. But she couldn't bring herself to leave the child without finding out more. Was she real? Was she lost? Did she have a home to go back to?

Sarah picked up the skipping rope that lay at her feet then gently tapped on the police box door.

"Hello?" she called out. "Little girl? Are you lost?" There was a silence. Sarah tried again. "I have your jump rope. Would you like it back?" Nothing. "You can come out you know. I won't hurt you or anything."

There was a small scuffling noise at the door. It opened just a little. Two large brown eyes peered out cautiously.

"Hi there," said Sarah, smiling. "I'm Sarah. Here you go." She held out the skipping rope and the girl took it, winding it around her hand nervously. "What's your name?" The girl didn't answer, but opened the door a little wider so she could squeeze out. Sarah got the impression she was trying to hide from her whatever was inside the police box, so she didn't look. Instead, she looked at the child's dress, which was incredibly authentic.

"That's a pretty dress," she said in a friendly voice. "Were you playing dress up?" The girl said nothing. "I used to play that. I pretended to be a cowgirl." The girl studied her carefully, taking in her messy ponytail and friendly grin.

"You sound like a real cowgirl," she said.

"That's because I'm from America," said Sarah, nodding. "Where do you come from?"

"You're from Texas," said the girl, avoiding the question.

"Clever little thing aren't you? Could you tell from my accent?" asked Sarah. The girl's own accent was very strange. It was a mixture of everything, but then again, it didn't really sound like anything Sarah had ever heard. Besides, Sarah wasn't at all familiar with the variety of English accents. The best she could do was to guess that it sounded vaguely Northern. But then again, it sounded like a London accent too, just a little. "So, what's your name?"

"You ask a lot of questions," said the girl, not aggressively, more as if she didn't quite understand Sarah's reason for being inquisitive.

"I like to know things about people," explained Sarah.

"Oh," said the girl, as if it honestly surprised her. "But I don't have a name."

"Of course you do! Everyone has a name," said Sarah. The girl just looked at her. "Well, what do your parents call you?"

"I don't know them," said the girl.

"I'm sorry about that," said Sarah immediately. But still she persisted. "What do other people call you?"

"I don't know any other people," the girl stated matter-of-factly. "Only you."

Sarah was at a loss for words. If that was true, the girl must have lived alone all her life. But how had she survived?

"The TARDIS calls me 'loyal' because I stayed with her when they didn't," said the girl suddenly. Sarah smiled encouragingly.

"Who's 'they'?" she asked first.

"My parents," said the girl "And their friend. He was a captain." She seemed much more willing to volunteer information now.

"Is the TARDIS your friend?" She nodded. "Your imaginary friend?"

"No," said the girl firmly. She put one pale hand on the police box. "This is the TARDIS."

"The police box?" said Sarah doubtfully. "It calls you loyal?"

"She's not really a police box," said the girl. Sarah noticed the change in her voice as she spoke of the…the TARDIS. It obviously meant a lot to her. Her whole face seemed more animated. She was almost smiling. She suddenly cocked her head as if she was listening to something, then nodded. "The TARDIS is alive, just like you and me."

"And she can talk?" asked Sarah. This sounded crazy. It was crazy. But try as she might, Sarah could not believe the girl was lying. Everything she said was true, or she thought it to be true.

"It's not like us talking," she said. "It's hard to explain. Sometimes I hear her in my head. Other times it's feelings or pictures." She smiled properly for the first time. "The TARDIS is very smart. And she's in my head, so she's probably telepathic. That's how I know I can trust you. The TARDIS says you're kind and brave, and you're having a hard time believing me but you don't think I'm lying." She smiled again. "Which means the TARDIS must be in your head as well."

"I don't think you're lying," said Sarah honestly. "And I'd really like to know more about you and the…TARDIS. But I wish I knew what to call you."

"Sometimes, I ask the TARDIS about my parents and their friend," said the girl dreamily. "But she doesn't tell me much. Just…sometimes she says 'doctor'. I don't understand that. And I don't think she knows my name."

"Doctor?" asked Sarah. "Huh. Sounds like your daddy didn't have much of a name either."

"Or that he thought names weren't important," said the child. Sarah looked at her. She was just a normal looking child. Abnormal circumstances of course. How many kids can say they were brought up by a police box? She only looked about ten. But she evidently packed more wisdom than most ten year olds.

"Maybe I should give you a name," suggested Sarah. "Or a nickname if you like. So I know what to call you. Would that be OK?"

"Maybe," said the girl hesitantly. "What would you call me?"

"Well, I'm pretty good with names," Sarah promised. "I can think of one that means 'loyal' for you. Give me a minute, OK?" She sat on a nearby crate to think, with the child watching her from the safety of the TARDIS.

"How about Dinah?" suggested Sarah after a minute. "From what I recall it means 'dedicated'."

The girl thought about it. Again, she looked like she was listening. Suddenly she giggled.

"The TARDIS says that's an old name that belongs to a grandmother, not a little girl," she explained. Sarah laughed.

"That's true," she said. "I'll think of another." While she sat there, the girl edged around her and began skipping again.

"I heard you singing before," Sarah said.

"I know," said the girl, over the sound of the rope hitting the ground softly. "It scared you."

"A little," admitted Sarah. "It sounded so strange, even though you have a nice singing voice. Did you make it up?"

"No," she said, stopping at last. "It's a Gallifreyan lullaby I think. The TARDIS taught me it." Sarah knew she ought to be curious as to what 'Gallifreyan' meant, but felt she had already pried enough.

"You'll have to translate it for me sometime," she said instead. The girl looked puzzled.

"You didn't ask about Gallifrey," she said.

"I figure it's for you to tell me, when you're ready," said Sarah, shrugging lightly. "I'm not nosy."

"Then someday I'll translate it for you," the child promised. Something tugged at Sarah's heart, some form of primitive maternal instinct. She could have run away. Instead, she had stayed, and now she knew more about this child and her unique circumstances. And even if she wanted to leave, she was too involved now to just walk away. This scared her. It also made her want to protect the girl and keep her safe from the horrors of the outside world she had never truly known.

"I've thought of another name," said Sarah, snapping out of her reverie. "How do you like the name Dilys?"

"It's pretty," said the girl.

"It means three things," said Sarah. "Sure, constant and genuine. Loyal and truthful. And I may not know you very well, but you're not a liar."

"I don't have any reasons to lie," said the girl. "The TARDIS likes it."

"And you?"

"It's a good name," she said firmly. "It's my name."

"Great," said Sarah, grinning at her. "Now we know just what to call each other. Most names have a meaning you know. My name is Hebrew for princess or queen."

"That's why you're going to call your new casino the Queen Casino," said Dilys.

Sarah's breath caught in her throat. She had completely forgotten about the casino. It had seemed such a great idea…but if she built it, she would destroy a girl's peace and her home. She couldn't do that to her.

"It's OK," said Dilys, guessing the cause of her silence. Or had the TARDIS whispered to her? Sarah had no way of knowing.

"No it's not," said Sarah firmly. "If I build a casino here, hundreds of people will visit. Or, I hope they will."

"I'd like to meet new people," said the girl. "I don't mind."

"But your home," protested Sarah.

"My home is the TARDIS," said Dilys, pushing the door open. For the first time Sarah caught a glimpse of the massive interior. She gasped.

"It's…it's a lot bigger on the inside," she said shakily.

"You could build a special room around the TARDIS," continued Dilys. "That way we'd be protected." Sarah looked at her. She seemed completely calm and sincere. Sarah realised that she must have sometimes been very lonely. This could be what she needed.

"I'll do it," she said. Dilys smiled.

"TARDIS means something too," she volunteered. Sarah smiled at her.

"I thought it might do," she said. "It's an unusual name. What does it mean?"

"The letters all stand for something," said the girl. "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."

Suddenly, Sarah realised what she'd got herself into.

……………………………………………………………………………………………

So, first chapter of what won't be anexcruciatingly long, but quite a strange story. And sad. But hopefully with a happy ending! So read on, my friends! Come back soon and I will have more wonders to give to you…

Please review. This is the deal: good deed for good deed. You review mine, I review yours.