In the TARDIS
That was going to bruise. Hitting a hard floor with his head really hadn't been on his list of things to do.
The blue and red tunnel had disappeared. He could make out the shapes of green and gold objects, but his vision was out of focus and crowded with black spots. His skull rang from the impact with the floor, and more pain blossomed from the scratch on his cheek. He figured that this time, his surroundings were still and he was the one swaying.
He sat up, blinked a few dozen times and nearly fell over again. He grabbed blindly for something that would hold his weight. His fingers wrapped around a surface covered with little, hard things that dug into his skin. It was probably what had given him a scraped cheek. He felt like he was going to fall over again if he let go, so he held on.
Something knelt down in front of him. "Easy," it said in Jones's voice.
Joe blinked a few more times, and finally, everything came into focus.
Jones was crouched down on one side of him. She appeared to be the same; soaked, but looking healthy. She should at least have had a headache. That would have been a little fairer.
He was holding onto at a wall of coral or a piece of furniture or something…that extended up to a curving ceiling. It was a support strut. Boy, if this was the state his thought processes had sunk to, he was in a lot of trouble.
Jones held up a finger in his vision and moved it from side to side. He tracked it and she put down her hand. She gave him a smile. "Sorry about that. Vortex travel can be pretty hard if you're not used to it." She raised her voice. "With or without a capsule."
"Martha!" This voice was male, British and whining. It belonged to someone behind Jones. "Do you mind? I'm trying to shake Vordren off the TARDIS."
She frowned and turned away from Joe. Joe would have liked a view of the speaker, but she was blocking the way.
"Couldn't we just enter the Vortex?" she asked.
"No, no, no, no," her friend replied. "The Vordren have no concept of the Time Vortex."
"But…" She shook her head and sprayed Joe with water. Not that it made any difference, since he was still wet.
"…They can travel through time," she said.
"Oh, yes, and quite brilliantly, too. Their theories of time are founded on other principles-completely off base, certainly, but still brilliant. They already have considerable knowledge of how to manipulate time; discovering the Time Vortex would be like the Dark acquiring the Signs from Will Stanton. Oh, no, wait, that's The Dark is Rising."
Joe rubbed his temple with one hand to soothe the headache that was still there "What are you talking about? What is this place? Who are you people?"
"You're in the TARDIS." Jones moved a little to the side and pointed over her shoulder. "That's the Doctor."
The stranger appeared around the glass column and flashed him a huge smile. "Hello! Nice to meet you at last, Joseph Dawson!"
"You!"
It was him, the man from the photos Ron Calais had sent Joe four years ago. Unlike Ron's description, the man called the Doctor wasn't wearing brown pinstripes. Instead, he was wearing blue pinstripes. It was an ugly blue, too, and it looked completely out of place in this environment of eerie greens and soft golds.
After all this time, Joe had begun to believe he'd never actually track the guy down. Those photographs had been taken in the 1950s, and here the man was, still looking the same. Joe had received, finally, conclusive evidence that the man was an Immortal.
Joe's reaction to being in the same room as an Immortal-an Immortal who knew he was there, which was even worse-made him feel a little awe and a bit of nervousness. However, sore and aching muscles and anger quickly overcame any other feelings, and he decided he didn't care. He wanted answers. He'd have better luck getting them if he wasn't still on the floor.
He gripped the support and planted his cane firmly against the floor to lever himself up. He was still a bit unsteady and nearly lost his balance.
"Woah!" Jones reached out for him.
Joe scowled and shook her off. She held up her hands and backed away a step. Once the room had stopped spinning again, Joe forced himself upright.
"Who the hell are you people?" He'd asked it before, but it was a question worth repeating, seeing as how it really hadn't been answered. "What kind of answer is, 'You're in the TARDIS?'" He glared at Jones and at the Doctor.
"Martha?" The Doctor asked as he returned his attention to the instruments on the console.
Jones held up her hands in a placating gesture. "I know this is confusing, but I swear, we're just trying to help. You're safe here. No one's going to hurt you-"
"Really. And here would be?"
He'd never been in a room like this. There was a hum, like machinery, in the background. The room was almost spherical. Thin, curving wall panels covered in hexagonal coffers met at the center of the ceiling.
A metal mesh walkway four feet off the ground traveled the length of the walls. On the far side of the room was an open doorway with wooden frame painted a familiar blue. The doorframe was incongruous with the rest of the place, especially since the corridor beyond it appeared to have the same design as this room.
A ramp ascended two feet to a second, circular metal mesh platform at the center of the room. A couple of railings and three more support struts surrounded the platform, and at its center was a circular table or console. Wires illuminated by a green glow hung down from underneath, and a glass column rose from the middle of the console to the curving ceiling. Cables connected the top of the column to the console.
"It's the TARDIS," Jones repeated. "It stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. It's a space ship."
Joe laughed. "You have got to be kidding me."
"Would that we were, Joe!" said the Doctor. He moved hurriedly around the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers.
"Where have you taken Adam-" Joe caught sight of the floor behind him. He should have noticed the other man sooner. Adam lay unconscious less than two feet away.
Joe let out a breath only when he saw Adam's chest rise and fall.
Jones stepped around Joe and knelt next to Adam. She placed two fingers on his neck.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Joe wished he had his gun or some sort of weapon. Too many things were happening at once, and he didn't know either of these people.
She held up her hands. "Nothing. I'm a medical doctor. I'm just…checking to make sure he's all right."
The room started to shake.
"Hold on!" the Doctor said. "Several hundred Vordren have latched onto the outside of the TARDIS. They're trying to-"
Joe grabbed the support strut just in time.
The room pitched to one side. Joe closed his eyes as the room shifted in the other direction. It settled upright within the space of a second, but it was long enough to make him nauseous.
The room jolted violently. Joe lost his hold on the support and began to fall. He ended up on his ass, again. That was another thing he was really getting tired of. Plus, he'd scraped his hand against the coral.
Jones leaned across Adam as the room bounced and shook like a plane flying through turbulence.
With a groan, the room began to tilt to one side.
Joe reached for the support and missed. "Shit." He began to slide backwards.
The angle wasn't very steep, and he moved slowly enough to grab onto any passing handholds. It was too bad there weren't any.
He slammed into Jones and knocked her into Adam. She yelped.
Joe's progress wasn't halted for long. The floor became steeper with every passing movement. The metal walls screamed in protest, but the structure held as the room titled at a forty-five angle.
Joe, Jones and Adam all went sliding down it. They accelerated as the angle of the floor became steeper. They didn't stop until they hit the wall.
The room stilled with one last tremor. It was sideways, but the key detail Joe focused on was the lack of movement.
The room had turned an entire ninety degrees. The floor now had a role as a wall, while some of the panels that had served as walls now fulfilled a life as the floor.
Joe kept his eyes closed as he waited for the dizziness to go away. He could feel nothing but air on his face, while he was lying on something uncomfortable.
Jones coughed, and Joe moved with each cough.
"Martha!" The Doctor yelled down.
Underneath Joe, trapped between him and Adam, Jones called up between coughs. "I'm fine."
Joe pushed against someone's limbs and rolled off the top of the pile. He landed on his back. Instead of the uncomfortable feeling of metal panels with indentations he'd expected, the material beneath his back was smooth. He turned his head to the side for a better look and opened his eyes. The surface beneath him was wood painted blue, like the doorway now located in the ceiling.
The Doctor had managed to avoid falling by climbing on top of the console. He was cursing. Joe didn't recognize the language, but he knew a string of curses when he heard one. He appeared to be uninjured.
Great. Next time, Joe was climbing on top of the console while the guy who couldn't die could get tossed into walls.
He didn't think anything was broken. He could feel his arms, his back, his chest and his thighs. All of his limbs complained, loudly, about the treatment his body had just gone through.
Jones rolled off of Adam and leaned over on hands and knees, coughing.
"You all right?" the Doctor asked.
Jones nodded as she sucked in a breath.
Adam had been at the bottom of the pile. Joe sat up for a better look of his friend.
The other Watcher wasn't moving, which meant he was still unconscious…unless he wasn't.
"No." Perhaps it was just his unusual vantage point. It couldn't be what it seemed to be from where he was.
He looked up at the console. Maybe the Doctor could tell if Adam was breathing.
The Doctor's expression was grim. Joe followed his line of sight down to a few feet away. The Doctor appeared to be looking at Adam.
"Adam," Joe said, hoping to stir the other Watcher. "Adam!"
Adam Pierson didn't move. His neck was at a wrong angle. He wasn't breathing. He was dead.
Joe closed his eyes as the reality sunk in. "No." Adam was a good friend who hadn't deserved this, not at such a young age.
There was still a chance that his suspicions were correct, that Adam was an Immortal. Joe counted down the secondsas he waited and clung onto that hope.
If Adam was Immortal, Joe decided in that moment that he wouldn't care. He just wanted the other man to be alive again. He'd seen too many good men die.
Joe had Watched three Immortals, all of different ages. He knew the approximate amount of time it took to heal from a broken neck. It varied a little in each person, but not by much.
It should happen any second now. "Come on, come on," Joe muttered.
Adam's head moved. Bons snapped as vertebrae realigned. Joe nearly had a heart attack.
Adam's eyes snapped open. His chest rose off the floor as he gasped air into empty lungs. He collapsed bodily back to the floor and groaned.
Joe laughed as he, too, collapsed. He was right. Adam was an Immortal.
Once he'd figured out everything else that was going on, and assuming they got out of here, then he'd think about the consequences.
