Rose had already gone to bed, leaving Kari and the Doctor in the console room alone. She had hardly spoke a word since they came back from dropping Cassandra off, and the Doctor was worried about her.
"Come on, what is it?" He asked, plonking himself down next to her on the chair.
Kari just shrugged at him. "Nothing much."
But the Doctor knew her so much better. "Come on, Kari. What's the matter? You've been so quiet, and that isn't like you. You haven't even tried to take us somewhere random. I know there is something seriously bothering you."
"I'm just… thinking, that's all."
"You can talk to me, you know. I'm always here if you want to talk." He told her, putting an arm around her.
"I know. Everything has just happened so fast. I mean, I've never really stopped and just thought about things before." She told him, trying to sort her head out. "How can I have been human, and then become Time Lord? How can I just randomly show up at different points in your life? How can I just easily accept that this is real and this is my life?"
"Is that what this is all about?" He asked her softly. "Listen, I don't know what happened to you. You insist that you were once human, but I have always known you to be you. To me, you have always been a Time Lord. Even the TARDIS tells us that you have always been Time Lord. It's only you who says you were human."
"You'll understand why one day." She mumbled to him.
"You have some sort of connection to the time vortex, I know that much. But I can't explain it any further than that. I'm sorry I can't answer all of your questions, Kari." There was honesty in his tone, he really was sorry.
"I know, it's okay. Its just, I sometimes wonder what my life would be like without all of this." She said, holding her hand out and signalling around the TARDIS. "And without you."
"I am always going to be here, Kari. I am never going to leave you. I promise." He told her, kissing the top of her head.
"Don't make promises you can't keep, Theta." She knew, that in the future, he was going to leave her, and she didn't want him to feel bad about breaking that promise when he had no choice.
"You called me Theta." He said, a huge grin on his face. "Everything is fine, Kari." He pulled her closer to him and held onto her tightly. He knew how sometimes she would start to feel a little low, but he knew she would always pull herself out of it in the end. "So, what do you want to do?"
"I don't know. I'm expecting to be pulled somewhere else the moment I start enjoying myself. That's usually what happens." Kari told him, remembering how whenever she was happy, she had to leave.
"Well, we could go anywhere you want. We can go meet Agatha Christie, Shakespeare or Elvis. Oh, I've always wanted to go to the Singing Towers of Darillium. We can go there, if you like?" the Doctor rambled off.
As soon as he said Darillium, Kari tensed up, which didn't go unnoticed. "Kari, what is it?"
"We can't go to any of those places. Not yet at least. Maybe one day you'll go and I'll catch up with you there, but not right now." She told him, thinking about what would happen at the Singing Towers.
"Spoilers?" He asked her, watching her closely. He knew there was a lot more to what was going on than she was telling him, but he knew that she liked to keep things to herself.
"Yup, spoilers." She told him, before falling silent. They stayed like that for some time before Kari spoke up again. "Doctor, if you knew that something… bad was going to happen, and you knew you could stop it, but by stopping it you alter the time lines and change the future, what would you do?"
"It depends on what this something bad is." He told her, hoping to get more information out of her.
"Say, someone was going to die, to save thousands of people. But you knew a way to change it so that they didn't have to die. Would you save them? Or watch them die?" She asked him, trying to keep herself calm as she thought about what would happen in their future and who they would lose.
"Would someone else be taking their place?" He asked her. Kari didn't answer him, she couldn't, because the only way for it to still work would be for someone else to take the place of who was meant to die. "Kari, nobody likes to see someone they care about die. But everyone dies eventually. Even I'm going to be gone one day."
Her head snapped up and she looked at him. "Don't you dare say that." She growled at him. "Don't you ever, ever, say that." She got up from where she was sitting and charged off through the TARDIS.
She only stopped when the TARDIS opened a door for her, one that she had never been in before. Carefully she made her way over to the door and peeked inside. Her eyes widened at the mess she saw within the room.
There were different tools and items scattered all over the place. It looked like a tornado had torn through a DIY shop and this was the devastation that it had left behind. "Well, this is certainly new." She said to herself.
The TARDIS gave a hum and the lights in the room became brighter. She noticed a desk sitting over against a wall and she carefully made her way through the mess to it. "The Doctor's workshop." She muttered as she looked at the blue prints and plans on the table.
Kari suddenly felt a strange urge to open the draw. She put her hand on the handle and hesitated. It wasn't until the TARDIS gave her an encouraging hum that she decided to open it. When she did, she found the draw to be full of broken and damaged sonic screwdrivers.
"Wow, he gets through a lot of these, doesn't he?" She asked, getting a hum for a reply. "Why did you bring me here?" Again, there was a loud hum as a reply.
Kari started pulling everything out of the draw. With some of them, it was easy to see what the damage was, but others looked perfectly fine, until she tried to use them. "I still don't understand what you want me to do. I know absolutely nothing about any of this stuff, this is the Doctor's area, not mine." She told the TARDIS.
Suddenly, Kari felt information just pour into her head, much like it had done when she had been taught how to pilot the amazing and impossible ship. Kari let out a groan when it seemed to stop. "You know, you could have warned me." She moaned to the ship.
"So, I guess you want me to make something now then?" There was a gently hum. "Okay, well, let's start by seeing what's useful and what's complete trash." She said, starting to sift through the items on the desk.
A few hours later she had a pile of what she called 'trash' on the floor beside her, and a collection of different sonic screwdrivers and parts on the desk in front of her. "You know, the Doctor could have easily fixed most of these if he had bothered to try. Rather than relying on you to make him a new one all the time."
She started to fiddle around with one of his old screwdrivers. It looked very much like the one he had now, silver with a blue light at the end. That was when she thought back to who else she knew to have a sonic screwdriver, very similar to his, at some point in the future.
And that was when it dawned on her. "You want me to make a certain screwdriver, don't you?" Kari asked. The TARDIS hummed, confirming her thoughts. "You know, I'm not sure this is a good idea. I'm pretty sure I didn't make it in the first place." She protested, but the ship was having none of it and started to hum even louder. "Okay, okay! Fine. No need to get snappy with me sexy. I'll do it."
She sat there for hours, finding all the other parts she needed. "Right, red setting, blue setting, and neural relay data chip." She mumbled to herself and she picked up the soldering iron and started to wield everything together.
It took her several more hours, numb hands and burnt fingers before she finally stopped and put everything down on the desk. "Okay, this is it. Fingers crossed." She said, getting up and picking up the screwdriver as well.
She walked over to a cabinet and hit the button. She heard it unlock and pulled it open. "Okay, works on locks. Brilliant." She said, before moving on to a beaten up computer. She tested it again, and the computer sprang to life. "Fantastic." Kari shouted, jumping up and down.
The TARDIS let out a loud hum of approval and congratulations. "Thanks, but I never would have been able to do it without you." She told the ship. "There's just one more thing that I need." She walked through the workshop and over to where she had earlier seen a mass of wooden boxes.
She picked one up, one that was the perfect size to fit the sonic screwdriver and took it back over to the desk with her. Kari looked at the plain box and frowned. "Engraving. I need to engrave it." Her attention was suddenly taken when one of the cupboards clicked open.
She walked over and pulled the doors open, to find everything she needed to engrave what she wanted to on the box. A smile formed on her face as she took it back over to the desk. "Please let me get this right." She mumbled, biting her lip.
She sat there, deep in concentration as she engraved both of the long edges. On one side she managed to write 'River Song' in the language of the Gamma Forest. On the other Kari worked even harder to engrave 'Melody Pond' in Gallifreyan.
"Hang on, how the hell can do I even know Gallifreyan?" She shouted once she realised what she had done. "Ugh, this is just getting crazier by the minute." She complained.
Kari looked at the box. She had to admit, she was really proud of herself for what she had managed to accomplish over the past few hours. "Well, I've done it. Didn't think I would, but here we are." She said, putting the newly made sonic screwdriver in the box and clicking it closed.
She let out a sigh as she inspected her hands. "Please tell me there isn't anything else you want me to do?" Kari asked, looking at the state of her hands. Sure, she knew they would heal in no time, but they were still hurting her.
Unfortunately, there was something else that the TARDIS wanted her to do. A hum from the ship told her to look in the bottom draw, which Kari reluctantly pulled open. She rummaged through it and pulled out a set of blueprints, for a sonic screwdriver she had never seen before.
"Oh, you are kidding me? You want me to make one from scratch?" She moaned, looking at the amount of work she would have to do to make it. There was another hum and Kari knew that she had to do it. "Fine. But at least let me go and put this box somewhere safe and hidden first. We can't have the Doctor finding it can we?"
Kari picked up the box and headed out of the workshop and towards her room. She wondered exactly how long she had been in that room for, and if the Doctor had been looking for her. She was about to turn into the corridor when she heard voices. She pushed herself against the wall and decided to listen.
"I really don't think she's in there, Doctor." Rose told him gently.
"I upset her, Rose. I need to talk to her. I haven't seen her since last night. She's been missing for around 14 hours now." He told her. Kari was a little shocked that she had been in the workshop for that long. It hadn't felt like that long to her, maybe 4 or 5 hours, but not anything longer.
"I'm sure everything will be fine, Doctor. She's probably just fallen asleep or something. Are you sure you've looked everywhere for her?" Rose asked him in concern. Kari was feeling a little guilty, he was worrying about her and she was fine.
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to have another look around. But I think she has gone, Rose. I hate her being upset with me, I wanted to talk to her and make things better before she had to go." Kari could hear the hurt and concern in his voice, but she couldn't face him yet, not while she was carrying something for someone he hadn't met yet.
She waited for a few more minutes before they finally moved away from her room and back towards the console room. Kari wasted no time in running into her room and shoving the box into her wardrobe.
Once she was sure it was safe, she opened her door a creak, peeking into the corridor to make sure that it was empty. She was lucky, and made a run back to the Doctor's workshop to make the other sonic screwdriver that the TARDIS wanted her to build.
When she sat down at the desk, she noticed the room was a little tidier, and all the things she needed had been placed neatly in front of her. "Well, that's one less thing to worry about. Thanks." Kari whispered, looking at the blueprint and the pieces in front of her.
She kept her focus, even if she did curse a few times from hurting her hands some more. After a while, her determination kicked in, and she was not going to rest until it was finished. Kari completely lost track of time, again, not that she really cared.
Every now and again, she would test it, and the orange light at the end would glow and the screwdriver would hum. It was a few hours later when Kari finally passed out from exhaustion. She hadn't left the workshop, so she hadn't eaten or ha anything to drink for longer than she should have.
She was slumped over the desk with the completed screwdriver grasped tightly in her hand. The burns on her fingers hadn't even had a change to begin to heal, and there was plenty of dried up blood around her hands as well. Kari hadn't realised just how hard she had actually worked, and how long she had worked for.
"Kari?" A voice called from out n the corridor. "Kari?" The voice called again, getting closer to the door. It slowly opened, letting out a little creak as it did. "Kari? Are you in here?" The Doctor called quietly, noticing that the light was on in the room.
He stepped in the room and looked around. He noticed that it seemed a lot tidier than he last remembered it. That was when he finally noticed the body slumped over the desk. The Doctor let out a sigh when he realised who it was. "Kari, what are you doing in here?" He asked, looking at the state of her hands and the chaos on the desk.
It wasn't until he went to pick her up, that he noticed the long, slim golden tube in her hand. He gently managed to tug it out of her grasp and turned it over in his hands. He couldn't believe that Kari had made it, it just didn't seem possible. But when he saw the blueprint spread out in front of her, he knew she must have.
Shaking his head, he tucked the screwdriver away in his pocket and gently gathered Kari up in his arms. As he left the room, Rose came around the corner, a worried look on her face.
"Oh my God, you found her? Where has she been?" She asked in a panic, but also relief from seeing her.
"She was in the workshop. I guess she has been there the whole time." The Doctor told her as he carried on walking with Kari in his arms.
"But, what was she doing in there?" Rose wondered.
"I'm not sure, but she's exhausted herself from it." He told her. "I'm going to get her to bed."
Rose nodded at him. "Yeah, okay. I'll see you in a bit then." She knew that he was going to probably stay with her until she woke up now, considering how long she had been missing for.
The Doctor carried on walking, until he came to a room that only Kari ever knew about. The door clicked open and he walked in, setting Kari down on the bed and pulling the covers over her. "You are in a lot of trouble when you wake up." The Doctor told her. "You had me so worried, Kari. You've been missing for almost 3 days."
Kari didn't answer him, she was sound asleep. The Doctor took this as his chance to inspect her hands properly. He let out a sigh when he saw the amount of burns and cuts that covered them. "What am I going to do with you?" He asked, putting her hands down and leaning back against the headboard.
It was a few hours later when Kari finally decided to wake up. She was a little confused as to where she was a first, she couldn't remember ever being in the room she was in before, but she calmed quickly when she saw the Doctor watching her.
"Oh, hi. Sorry, did I fall asleep somewhere?" She asked, rubbing her eyes a little. She quickly looked at her hands and noticed that they looked a lot better than they had done when she finished the screwdriver.
"Yup. Not sure how long you had been asleep for, since you had been missing for 3 days." The Doctor told her casually.
Kari almost jumped of the bed. "I was what? Missing for 3 days? I wasn't missing, I was in your workshop. And I wasn't in there for 3 days." She protested.
The Doctor pulled the sonic screwdriver he had found in her hand out of his pocket and showed it to her. "Not bad. Considering it was your first one." He told her, looking it over again. He couldn't help but noticed that her name seemed to be carved into the metal, in Gallifreyan. "I take it you had some help?"
Kari nodded at him. "Yeah, she showed me what to do. Streamed all the information into my head. You know, I really wish she would at least warn me when she was going to do something like that." She moaned, looking up at the ceiling. The TARDIS gave a little hum. "I know, sorry." She mumbled to the ship.
"Have you tried it out yet?" He asked her, trying to stop the grin that wanted to spread across his face.
"No. I must have finished it and then fallen asleep. I don't even know if it works at all." She told him, wondering why he wasn't annoyed with her.
"Well? Shall we go and find out?"
Kari just looked at him. "What do you mean? Are you not upset at the fact that I went into your workshop and rummaged through your things before making a sonic screwdriver from scratch?" She asked him curiously.
"Why would I be upset? You know you can go anywhere in our TARDIS, and I was wondering how long it would take for you to start pestering me for your own sonic. I never realised that you were going to end up making one yourself." He told her, letting the grin finally take over his face.
"Wait, are you letting me keep it?" Kari asked, her eyes lighting up.
"Well of course I am. You put a lot of work into it, I'm not going to take it away from you." He seemed a little shocked that she even thought he wouldn't let her have it. "I know for a fact that you're going to use it. A lot."
Kari let a smile form on her face as she watched the Doctor. "Spoilers?"
"Spoilers. Now come on, 3 days is a long time for me to have not seen you. I was worried you had left."
Kari let out a sigh as she remembered the reason for why she had ended up in the workshop in the first place. "I'm sorry for shouting at you and disappearing like that. I just don't like to hear you speaking like that."
The Doctor's face suddenly turned serious. "Kari, I'm the one that should be apologising. I never should have said what I did in the first place."
She just nodded at him, accepting his apology. "Right, so where are we off to then? And what have you and Rose been doing while I've been… missing?" She didn't think she had actually been missing. She was sure that if he had asked the TARDIS, she would have told him where she was.
"We've been searching for you, actually. Something was telling me that you were still here somewhere. Can't believe I never thought to look in the workshop sooner." He moaned.
"Well, you've found me now. So, can we go on some adventures?" Kari asked him, bouncing on the bed a little. "Actually, first you can tell me, who's room is this?"
"Oh… um, yeah." He suddenly turned a little nervous and shifted a little on the bed. "This… uh, this is my room." He told her.
"O… kay. And why exactly am I in your room?" She asked him, folding her arms across her chest and raising an eyebrow at him.
"Well I couldn't exactly put you in your own room, could I? So I thought I'd bring you here." He told her, trying to get over his nervousness.
Kari shrugged at him before smiling. "Fair enough. So where are we going?" She asked him again.
"Somewhere you can test out your new sonic screwdriver." He told her, before passing it to her.
"Brilliant!" She shouted. "Let's go then." She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him off the bed. Soon she was dragging him through the enormous ship and towards the console room, ready to test out her new device.
A/N: Again, sorry for the long wait. Life got in the way. This was meant to be just a little filler, but it ended up having so much more meaning to it in the end.
Kari has a sonic! Woohoo! Her collection of gizmos and gadgets is growing. First the psychic paper, now a sonic screwdriver, whatever will she end up with next? Sure, I already know what it's going to be, but do you?
Anyway, I am glad to see so many people are enjoying this story. I promise the big reveal is coming up really really really soon.
You know how much I love your reviews, so feel free to leave one!
Pippa.