The Doctor's TARDIS
Noni still wasn't talking to him. Not that the Doctor would ever admit that it bothered him, but every now and then he forgot and addressed a remark to her that required a response. The stiff silence that inevitably followed such lapses was as loud anything he'd ever heard.
He would have to address that issue, and soon. Today, perhaps. It was beginning to distract him, right when he needed to stay focused. They'd investigated two of the Master's old hiding places, but found no evidence that his TARDIS had been there. Or, indeed, that anyone had been in either place for a very long time. "Two down, seven to go," had been the Doctor's comment. Noni had glared at him the entire trip back to his TARDIS, obviously not appreciating his attempt to lighten the mood.
They were in the Console Room. The monochromatic whiteness usually comforted him, but today it bothered him. Maybe it was time for a change--he stopped that thought immediately, recognizing where it came from. The reason the room felt cold and sterile wasn't just because of the color. The deep freeze Noni was radiating was beginning to affect his mood.
She stood, arms crossed, by the main door, waiting for him to plug in the next set of coordinates. If past experience was anything to go by, she would then leave, passing deliberately close before stalking through the interior door and disappearing until meal time. Then she would reappear, prepare something for them both to eat--whether he was hungry or not--eat her own meal in continued silence, clean up, and disappear again until the next morning.
He hadn't realized how much he'd come to depend on having someone about to bounce ideas off of until he suddenly found himself in the peculiar position of traveling with someone who wasn't speaking to him. And on my own TARDIS, too, he thought, suddenly indignant. Yes, Noni had cause to be angry with him, but enough, he decided, was enough. Five subjective days had passed since delivering Susan to his first self, and he'd given Noni more than enough space. Time for drastic measures. "I'm taking you home."
Noni froze in the act of moving toward the door to the interior of the TARDIS. Without turning around, she said: "I have to help you find Ace and Kyris."
"Ah, so you can speak. Which means you can also listen." The Doctor's voice went cold; he was done mollycoddling her. He'd given her time to get over her hurt at his perceived betrayal, time which she'd used instead to nurse her grudge. "I understand that you're angry. Believe me, I'm not exactly happy with the current situation myself. But I cannot fight a war on two fronts, and if you cannot find a way to live with the decisions I've been forced to make, then one of those decisions has to be to return you to Gallifrey while I search for my missing family members by myself. I cannot spare the time or the energy to babysit a pouting child."
Noni turned, then, the shock of his words like a dash of cold water on her face. "Now I'm not allowed to be angry?" Her voice was shrill, but at least she was talking.
"Of course you are!" the Doctor exclaimed, slapping the TARDIS console with one hand. Unintentionally demonstrating his own frustrations. "I've never denied anyone the right to their feelings! What I am objecting to is your expression of those feelings. I cannot fight you and search for the Master's TARDIS at the same time, and that is exactly what you are forcing me to do!"
Eyes wide, she was obviously considering his words. "You act like it doesn't matter to you, so I thought you didn't care." Her voice was tentative, uncertain. Another good sign; it meant she was actually listening.
"Well, now you know better." His voice, still icy, showed signs of thawing as he regarded her out of hooded eyes. "Right now my focus is divided, and that is exactly the sort of thing that gets people killed." He deliberately pulled a face. "Usually me."
A snort of laughter was startled out of Noni, quickly stifled as she considered his words, and the ultimatum she'd just been delivered. She felt a flash of guilt, and tried unsuccessfully to bury it. "I didn't realize. I'm sorry." Sulking wasn't worth being thrown off the TARDIS. And she truly hadn't realized that her mood was affecting him, certainly not to the extent he was admitting to. "It's just that it hurts, losing Susan like that."
"I know." Two simple words, words Noni hadn't expected to hear. The Doctor had acted, to her mind, as if she should simply forget Susan and move on, as if he had already done so. Now, she realized, that was simply not the case. He knew, because he felt the same way she did, and Noni had been selfishly refusing to acknowledge his pain, too wrapped up in her own, too busy feeling betrayed and lost. Too busy, she admitted, acting like a child.
"I'm sorry." It cost her, to repeat those words, but she meant them, needed him to hear them. Because she had been selfish, and childish, and much as she disliked admitting it, he'd been right to call her on the carpet for giving him the silent treatment. Instead of focusing on the goal, she'd let herself become distracted and in doing so, had distracted the Doctor at a time when he needed to use every ounce of concentration.
"Thank you." The Doctor returned to entering the coordinates for their next destination. "I'll let you know when we've arrived."
Noni continued out the door. She'd found a fantastic exercise yard off the gymnasium, complete with the illusion of a bright blue sky overhead and what felt like real grass on the ground. She'd set up a hay bale, probably meant as an archery target but perfect for knife throwing practice. She'd even scared up an image of the Master and made multiple copies of his sneering face, putting it smack in the center of the target and taking immense pleasure each time a copy was shredded to bits. It probably wasn't healthy, but it helped pass the time.
oOo
Only a few hours passed before the Doctor announced their arrival. Noni had long since put her knives away and was forcing herself to eat a sandwich in the kitchen nearest the Console Room, which was where the Doctor found her. She popped the last bite into her mouth and took a generous swallow of milk before wiping her face and dashing after him as he made his was back to the Console Room.
"This one seems a bit more promising," he said as she joined him in examining the monitor. The visual that greeted her didn't exactly match his description as "promising"; she saw a dark, irregular planetary surface liberally strewn with boulders and with the horizon suspiciously close. "The residual energy readings seem to indicate at least some TARDIS activity recently on this planetoid."
Noni bit back a groan of disappointment. Residual energy meant there wasn't another TARDIS currently there, which was what she'd been hoping. Still, it was better than the nothing they'd found so far. "What do we do now?"
"We investigate," was the not-unexpected reply. "We'll have to go outside to get a better idea of where we stand; fortunately, there's enough gravity and breathable atmosphere so we don't need to hunt up the environmental suits. Come along, Noni." The Doctor grabbed his brolly and headed for the door.
In his other hand was the small device he insisted would help them pinpoint the Master's TARDIS. He'd built it using information he received from his first self as well as the TARDIS database; she'd watched silently as he put it together, but had stubbornly refused to ask about it. Until now. "What exactly does that thing do, Doctor?" She nodded at the innocuous metal and plastic rectangle. It didn't look much more complex than her calculation device back home, and appeared to actually have fewer buttons.
"It detects and interprets the energy emitted by the Master's TARDIS, and can tell us how recently it's been to a particular location. In this case, the location we currently occupy." He walked through the door, still talking, and she followed, listening intently. "I used a similar device when we were looking for the Master before, but he was in control of his TARDIS at the time and was aware he was being followed. At the same time, I was missing pertinent information, so it did us no good. This one, however, appears to be working the way I anticipated." He tapped a series of buttons, peering intently at the readout monitor, and grunted. "This way." He took a sharp left, Noni trotting at his heels.
"What if he's been here in the past or will be here in the future? What if we're not in the same time zone?" There seemed to be a lot of variables to account for, which made Noni nervous.
"It's calibrated for his most recent appearance, relative to us; otherwise, we'd have to investigate every single time and place he ever visited these particular private getaways of his," the Doctor explained absently. His eyes were glued to the monitor. "Do be a good girl and let me concentrate." That earned him a glare, which he either ignored or just didn't notice. Noni had no way of telling, but she obeyed, keeping shut and concentrating on not bouncing too far off course in the lower gravity.
Three hours later they returned to the TARDIS, tired but in relatively good spirits. The Master's TARDIS had, indeed, been here. It had sat here for a long period of time, months, perhaps, before suddenly leaving only a few weeks prior to their arrival.
"Can we tell where it went?" had been Noni's first, eagerly asked, question, but the Doctor's negative response had dashed that hope.
"No, but it's still good news. If his TARDIS was here as long as this," he patted the tracking device affectionately, "says he was, then this isn't where his TARDIS ended up after he kidnapped Kyris and Ace."
Noni frowned. "How does that help?"
"Because it's proof he's been using these old hiding places of his, and that he feels confident enough of their obscurity to leave his TARDIS here for extended periods of time. It's significant that it left here around the time he took his hostages; he took it to Gallifrey, then sent it away using the link he'd created to control his TARDIS over long distances."
"Using someone else's stolen technology," Noni remembered with a black frown. "But he didn't send it back here, so maybe he isn't so sure of this place after all."
"We still have several other possibilities to explore," the Doctor reminded her. "Perhaps he thought it wise not to return to a place he'd spent such a long period of time occupying. I think it would be a good idea to not only explore his other possible hiding places, but also to go back and monitor those first two locations again. Chin up, my girl; he's not controlling his TARDIS now, so we're that much more likely to find it. After all," he added confidently, "there's only so much pre-programming he could have done, only so many contingencies he could have tried to cover."
Noni had her doubts, but kept them private as the Doctor, humming under his breath, punched in the next set of coordinates and closed the TARDIS' outer door. If this didn't work, there was literally no other way to search for the Master's TARDIS except through trial and error. That was more than a hundred lifetime's worth of work, and no guarantee of success at the end.
With that depressing thought, Noni opted to leave the Console Room. "Let me know when arrive; I'll probably be in the exercise yard." Throwing knives at the Master's image and trying to think positive thoughts.