Standard Disclaimers Apply. Thanks to Emma for the fast beta. UR Roxor111. Hey… two more stories after this one, then that's it, there aint no more!

XYZ

Neither Here Nor There

Chapter 2

XYZ

"No, no, no, no…NO-no-no." Eyes fixed on the external display, the Doctor slapped controls, trying to get something—anything-to work properly. Something that could be construed as a defensive measure might be nice…

On the monitor, the many gun turrets began glowing as they were being charged. A warning would have been polite. But really—the TARDIS was small; it should have looked like space junk. Why were they firing up every single gun on the ship?

Wondering if there had been a power surge, or if the console wasn't getting enough power, or if it didn't know what to do with the power it had… the Doctor kicked the cabling out of the access hatch, unceremoniously disconnecting it. Pushing past the dangling black wires, he tried to start her up again, to get them anywhere but here.

It was then that he noticed the bright lights on the monitors—they were firing.

Slowly his face melted from screwed up with concentration to slack jawed and wide-eyed. Those should have been direct hits. The angle of descent, the firing pattern…

Running around to the other side of the console, he saw the weapons fire disappearing into the nothingness behind them.

"Oh this is weird." Even for him, this was weird. Usually when people scored direct hits, you like, blew up and stuff.

Removing the cabling from the console had done absolutely nothing to aid their cause. Reaching into the hatch, he ripped out the converter he'd had such a terrible time installing. A few extra lights hummed to life on the console, and he checked the external sensors—nothing. Moving on to energy readings, he looked at the figures, pulled out his glasses, then looked at them again. They were still reading flat-line for real-space. However, the vortex levels were spiked.

The ship lurched again, popping out of time and place. It spun as it hurled itself somewhere that he had no control of, lurched one more time for good measure as it popped out of the vortex, tossing him clear over the railing and onto a lower access grate. It hurt. — A lot.

The lights flickered half a dozen times, then settled on being out. The console still glowed and a few emergency systems slowly churned to life, but that was it. They were…wherever they were. And he didn't mean that in a Buckaroo Banzai kind of way—mostly wherever they were at, they were stuck there for the time being.

Looking at the sensors after he climbed back over the rail, he checked the monitor. Earth—the placement of the continents put it anywhere between, oh, 1700 and, say 2100. He knew it couldn't be later than that—there'd been that whole…thing, with the simultaneous earthquakes, and several landmasses going the way of Atlantis and all that. So, yeah. Good…four hundred years or so margin for error on the 'when' thing.

Hoping his equipment could tell him more, he looked at the readings—same as last time. They had to be broken. He could SEE Earth. They weren't in the Vortex.

Or were they? Those energy blasts had appeared to go right through them.

Oh hell. What if they were half-materialized somewhere? Either a transparent ghost in space, or not even really there at all. Stuck in the moment between the TARDIS moving in and out and in to space and time.

A few more lights on the console flickered then died away.

'Where' seemed immaterial at this point, both literally and figuratively. Which made 'when' irrelevant. It didn't matter, they weren't really anywhere at the moment. However, they were stuck there, until he figured out just how much that short phone call had cost him, and figured out how to reverse the charges.

XYZ

The ship had pitched hard, twice. The additional gravity stabilizers in the other ship provided some buffer, otherwise Violet'd have probably been slammed into a wall with the second hit.

If she knew their luck, they'd landed in the middle of a war, or worse. Oh well. He'd come find her if she was needed.

Sitting under the white console, knees pulled to her chest, Violet stared out into nothing, trying not to think. Her gran had sounded so much like… her gran. It was unnerving, and she didn't know why. Why hadn't she wanted to stay on the phone with her gran?

And the Doctor…well, he'd been trying. He'd probably meant it to be a very good thing, which she appreciated. It was the thought that counted, or so her mum said when people gave her weird gifts for birthdays and Christmas.

Christmas.

She couldn't say she was looking forward to it, or Christmas on Earth. She didn't know why. The idea of snow and pine trees and fake good will and charity that would last only until January 1st, or until a bunch of stupid adults began clamoring and clawing in a toy store for the 'perfect' toy for their child…she just couldn't stand it.

As if there were such a thing as perfect. For everything given, something was taken away. The universe's way of balancing the scales, she supposed. Sometimes, when she was bored, she tried to figure out the mathematical proportions of the given/taken away formula, but it seemed fairly random. She wasn't sure if she believed in 'random' or 'chance' or even 'luck' any more.

Truthfully, she wasn't sure what she believed in. It certainly wasn't fairies or Father Christmas. It wasn't in ever getting home (oh how certain she'd been when she'd first gotten here, that she'd go back to her family some day! It was shameful). She didn't know what the future held for her. Those seemed to be the only possibilities she didn't see, which often made her worry.

The door swung open, interrupting her thoughts. "Got some…interesting trouble."

Sighing, she got to her feet and headed for the door. "I'd like to think that all trouble is interesting. Mostly I hope it keeps your interest long enough to get out of it."

As she walked past, the Doctor ruffled her hair. "You'll like this one—we're stuck half way between the vortex and some random point in Earth's history. Well—until the ship decides to jump again. Then we'll be stuck between the vortex and some other random place and time. By the way, it's after midnight according to my watch. Merry Christmas. We can do the whole presents and warm drinks thing now, or after we're in an actual place, I suppose. Whatever you want to do."

She didn't say anything. It just took too much energy to be insulting, any more.

XYZ

Within an hour they had the lights restored. About five minutes after that, when they started working on the other power problems, a satellite phased through the ship, disrupting the energy in the ship again.

With a few more flickers, they found themselves right back where they'd started. It also knocked off about three centuries off his previous estimate of what time they were in. Which was, again, irrelevant (he hoped). Of course, why hadn't he seen them on the external monitors before? He'd be really upset if they were stuck between the vortex, a place, and two separate times. That'd be even trickier to sort.

Sighing, the Doctor got his head out of the access panel. "Alright. I think we need to take a minute and think about this." Sitting forward, he gestured for Violet to stop digging around under the grates. She put down the large set of wire cutters, closed the grate and sat on it silently. "We've got to either find a way to make ourselves skip to the middle of nowhere, or move outside of the range of these satellites at least, otherwise every time we get somewhere, we'll be going through this. Of course, we don't exactly have the power to do either, right now. So. Thoughts?"

Violet bit her lower lip for a moment. "Divert everything to the control column? It may be enough to get her started."

Nodding, the Doctor got to his feet, still in thought. "Possible. Reattach the energy converter and use the sun to make some useful energy. Of course, the converter may have been part of the problem. While it'd be ironic if it were part of the solution, it's also probably unlikely." He held a hand out to her. "I'd think better with tea."

She didn't move to take his hand. "I don't want any, thank you."

Leaning a little closer, he gestured with his hand for her to take it. "I also think better when I have someone to think AT. So, sorry, you're coming with me."

The girl didn't sigh—she didn't need to. The resignation was written in her slumped shoulders as she followed him. They needed a few minutes to plan their next move, and other than their power problems, coupled with their utter stuck-ness, they didn't seem to be any immediate danger.

It wasn't necessarily true that a watched pot never boiled, but it sure did make for nice awkward silences. He wasn't sure where to start just yet, so he just leaned on the counter, watching the kettle.

It finally whistled, steam curling up into the air. Watching it for a moment, he let it go on—that humid howling for just a bit too long before removing it. That wasn't how the silence should have been filled either…

Tea was poured, and then there was more silence. She stared at her cup. He stared at her. "You should drink up, before it gets cold. Don't waste it—this stuff's vintage Boston Tea Party. Well, the stuff we didn't throw overboard—that stuff's a bit useless. I mean, used tea is one thing, but you don't know the things they used to dump into that harbor. Talk about a lesson in unsanitary…"

She used to be so quirky about her tea. Enough sugar to put a bear into a coma, a touch of milk some days, some days not, then she'd drink it with a straw. This she just picked up and tossed back, still piping—probably just to shut him up. Well, at least she was being quirky with her mood swings. It showed that there was still some hope, or that he wanted to see that there was hope. "Problem at hand," she reminded him.

Staring over the rim of his cup, he nodded. "Right. The problem at hand. So, something I did with the power routing's zapped us to a happy in-between place and now we're stuck. Summed up the situation enough? But more importantly, I managed to connect a call all the way through to another reality, making me supreme ruler of telephone operators, and you got to talk to your gran for all of five minutes before thrusting the phone at me and walking off. I'd like to know why." He wasn't mad, but he was thoroughly concerned.

The eyes that looked up at were round and hollow. They weren't just dry—they were lack-luster. "She always fusses too much."

Putting the half-full teacup on the counter beside him, he folded both arms over his chest, sizing her up. She seemed to actually believe that. "Vi, she's your gran, she's going to fuss." That thought almost made him sentimental (almost!). Looking up at the low-hung brownish red ceiling, his lips twitched, caught between a grimace and a smile and not knowing what to do. "I'd bring your mum home, and first thing, it'd be the customary scolding about staying away too long and me getting her killed. She had it down to a science. It was…kabuki-esque. If that's not a word, it should be. But once that business was out of the way, she'd start fussing with tea and running out to buy something to make for dinner." He gave a visible shudder at that memory. "I can tell you're a bright girl—you obviously never ate her cooking because you're still alive and don't have three eyes and twelve fingers."

She didn't appear to be visibly phased by the dig. It used to be that he could either make her laugh, or get angry enough to chase him when he insulted Jackie. He knew it was a bit of a low blow—Jackie wasn't here to insult him back. He'd like to think she had seven years to insult him—but he knew Jackie hadn't mentioned him to Violet once. Apparently, to her, he was best forgotten.

Finishing off the rest of the tea, he contemplated another cup. She didn't appear to want any more, and he could certainly drag this out a bit longer if he had a few more. It wasn't like they actually had talks any more. "Alright, you're at an age where you don't want anyone to make a fuss. But you haven't talked to her—live—in a long time. You could have at least PRETENDED that you wanted to talk to her."

The girl sighed, pushing the cup away from her. "It takes a lot of effort to pretend."

"Sometimes, yeah." That he knew from years of having to. "Vi, come on. We're stuck here for a few days, at least. So there's no where we can go running off to where you can distract me by getting yourself into trouble. I still don't know what I'm going to do about the ship, so you might as well just tell me what's on your mind."

Hunching over even further, she tried to shrink behind the edge of the table. He'd tell her to sit up and all kinds of things about posture that he'd never subscribed to himself, but she'd probably either ?call him? on itscoff at the hypocrisy, or just march right off. Biting her lip, she examined her dirty fingernails, thinking, but trying not to.. He knew that look—he often wore it himself. So he let her go. They had all the time in the world to wait.

He could see her twisting the bottom of her t-shirt with one hand, a nervous habit she'd picked up within the last year or so. If his jacket wasn't in reach for her to scrunch and ball up, it'd be some article of her own clothing. "It's just--"

With a hum the emergency lights in the room flickered off and they were left in total darkness. His instinct was to put down the cup and start a dead run for the control room, but he forced himself to remain where he was. "Go on," he said much more calmly than he felt.

She was shifting uncomfortably. He knew she didn't like the dark—she refused to sleep in it, and if they ever got caught in a situation, he knew he'd better just get the sonic screwdriver and get some light going before she got upset. It had something to do with that thing that had brought her here, but he'd never delved into it further—she'd never seemed ready to talk about it. Of course, if Jackie was right, he should have been confronting these things head-on to begin with—sort of like the way he dealt with the universe. "It's just… sometimes…" she took in a deep breath. "Not sometimes—all the time--"

The ship pitched again. Hot tea spilled up his arm as he went flying into the table. He could hear her chair sliding backwards and colliding with the wall. It took another few seconds, but all the falling kitchen items settled and the table stopped sliding.

Standing up, he shook the liquid off of his sleeve. "Everybody alright?" He personally could have done without the tea burns—painful reminder of an old companion, you see. And the edge of the table hitting him in the gut.

"No," was the choked response.

Whipping out the sonic screwdriver, he saw exactly what the problem was, as soon as it lit up. "Ouch," he sympathized, thenpulling pulled the table away from her chest. She'd been slightly crushed between the table and the wall, her chair tipped precariously. The wooden chair hit the ground and wobbled, the legs snapping off, causing her bottom to connect with the floor a moment later. "Ouch again."

Brushing away bits of broken teacup, she grabbed onto his trouser leg and pulled herself upright.

He brushed bits of debris off of her nightclothes. Probably should send her to get dressed, he supposed. Of course, at this point—did it matter, much? It wasn't like they were walking out into public any time soon. Kid might as well be comfortable. "Ok. So I might have mucked things up just teeny, tiny, insignificantly small amount more than I thought I did."

Nothing. No confirmation that yes, he was an idiot for meddling with things that'd been working perfectly fine to begin with. In the past, she'd have had a fun time all day with this—the Doctor breaking everything. Even Rose would have had a few playful digs. He missed having someone to question him—missed having someone to fight with.

The emergency power flickered back up, and the girl sighed. "Lets just fix it," Violet suggested, cutting off any further wallowing.

There was something so business about her voice—she was glad this problem was giving her a chance to wiggle out of telling him what was wrong. She was far too young to start with some of his bad habits. Alright. Jackie had won the battle, but she hadn't won the war. "First thing's first. I find out where we've ended up now. You need to put some clothes on. Then I want the sleeping bag out of the control room. I don't care where you put it—just not in there. I don't need anything else getting loose and getting in the way if we jump again." And she just wasn't sleeping in the control room tonight. But that was a battle for another time.

Getting rid of the wet jacket, he rolled up his shirtsleeves as he came into the control room. Not bothering with the external sensors, he took a look at the displays.

Oh yeah. That was NOT good. Still Earth, still the same orbit, but this time he had Pangaea, the super-continent and late 24th century space cruisers. This was coupled with the fact that the sun was bulging and enormous, barely being held back from a supernova. The cruisers didn't seem to notice either thing that was amiss (coupled with the fact they should have burnt up by now), so the good news was that the history of the universe wasn't fracturing.

The bad news was—they were in three times at once and no place at all. No wonder the TARDIS was short on power—it was probably taking everything she had to keep the inside of the ship in the same place at once.

Dread set in as the console began to flicker. What had happened the last time they'd lost emergency power was still fresh in his mind. If the TARDIS jumped one more time, they'd be in four times at once and probably disintegrate.

TBC…