A/N: Hey guys, thank you so much for all the awesome reviews. I've been working so hard and have several chapters ready for you. Yay!
"So, this is interesting." Kari mumbled, not really knowing what else to say.
The woman just looked at her. "It was me."
"What was?" Kari looked at her, completely lost and confused.
"Oh, it's too early. You haven't asked that yet. Ask me something."
"Uh, okay." Kari replied nervously, racking her brains and trying to find something she could ask. She hadn't expected to be in this situation, or for the TARDIS to offer to answer her questions for her. "Why do you call me your beautiful Angel? And what's all this Angel of Time stuff as well?"
"Because you are my beautiful Angel. And you always will be. You travel through the whole of time and space, the time vortex flows within you."
"But why? Why me? What the hell is so damn special about me? I mean, I was living a normal life, well relatively normal, even if it was boring." Kari said, starting to ramble a little. "I've never been popular, I've never been that smart, I'm just a nothing, a nobody."
"Oh no, but you're not, my Angel. You are so much more than all of that. Of all people in all the universes in existence, you are the one that my thief needs." The woman told her softly. "And only you. No one else."
Kari just rubbed her head a little. "You know, I still don't understand any of this. I used to think that none of this was real, that you didn't exist, that the Doctor didn't exist, that this was all just some made up story." She admitted.
"Oh, my precious, beautiful Angel. We have always existed, just not where you could see us." The woman told her, placing a hand on the side of her face and smiling at her. "In time you will see just how much you are meant to be here."
"Was I… Am I…" Kari was struggling to find the words she wanted, to string her sentence together and ask the question that was burning in the back of her mind. "Can I ever go home?"
"You are home, my darling. You belong here, with the Doctor." Kari just nodded, tears forming in her eyes. She knew the deeper meaning to that, she could never go home. She would never see her father again, her whole world was lost to her and there was no way back.
"It's gone." The Doctor called, rushing back towards the pair of women.
"Eaten?" The mad lady who was really the TARDIS asked him, sending a worried look towards Kari.
"No, it left. Not eaten, hi-jacked. But why?" He said, before turning and looking at Kari. He could see the tears. "Hey, what's the matter?" He asked her, wrapping his arms around her tightly.
Kari was trying to be strong, but she couldn't do it any more, and she let a few tears fall. "Nothing. Bad day." She mumbled into his chest.
The Doctor just looked at the other woman standing there looking at the pair. "I answered some of her questions. Don't worry, Doctor, there are plenty more left for you to answer for her."
"Questions? What questions?"
"The same ones my Angel asks you, but avoid answering." She told him sternly, glaring at him a little.
"What do you mean?" He asked, before looking down at Kari. "Kari, what is going on? Please, talk to me."
She let out a sigh and pulled away from the Doctor a little. "We were just talking, that's all. I asked a few questions, such as why I'm here."
He let out a sigh, it was the same conversation they had over and over again. One thing that he could never convince her of, something that he could never give her a satisfactory answer to. "You're here because you are, Kari. And I wouldn't want it any other way."
"I know. You should be used to my little mood swings by now." She told him, making him chuckle a little. "I guess I just needed more confirmation of some of the things that were bothering me, and who better to ask than the brilliant, fantastic, sexy woman that is the TARDIS?"
"Are you really okay?" He asked her, tucking a lock of her hair that had decided to fall over er face back behind her ear.
"Yeah, I'm okay. I've got the pair of you, how can I not be okay?" She assured him. "And here come the patchwork people." She mumbled, spotting Auntie and Uncle coming.
"It's time for us both to go, Unkie, together." Auntie said as they walked over.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, go? What do you mean go? Where are you going?" The Doctor asked them, getting himself frustrated again.
"Well, we're dying, my love. It's time for Auntie and Uncle to pop off now." Auntie told them all, wrapping her shawl tightly around her shoulders.
"I'm against it." Uncle added, a blanket draped over himself.
"It's you fault, isn't it, sweets? Because you told House it was the last TARDIS. House can't feed on them if there's none more coming, can he?" Auntie told the Doctor, making herself comfortable.
Uncle sat himself down as well, hugging the blanket tightly. "So now he's off to your universe to find more TARDISes." He said.
"Well, that's not going to happen, there are no more TARDISes." Kari said, looking at the poor people that weren't going to last much longer.
"Oh, he'll think of something." Auntie told him, before collapsing into a heap where she had been sitting.
"Actually, I feel fine." Uncle said, before he follow suit and just… died.
"Not dead. You can't just die!" The Doctor shouted at the two bodies.
"We need to go to where I landed, Doctor. Quickly." Their TARDIS in a woman's body told him.
"Why?" He asked, turning to look at her.
"Because we are there in three minutes. We need to go now." She said, going to run but only to be overcome by pain. "Roughly how long do these bodies last?" She asked as Kari helped her to stand.
"You're dying." The Doctor told her softly.
Kari just rolled her eyes. "Well of course she's dying. She doesn't belong in a flesh body."
That earned her a smile from the mad woman, who really wasn't mad. "I could blow the casing in no time. No, stop it. Don't get emotional. Hmm, that's what the orangey girl says. You're the Doctor Focus." She said, looking at him, waiting.
"On what? How? I'm a madman with a box, without a box." He rambled. "I'm stuck down the plughole at the end of the universe on a stupid old junkyard." Suddenly he perked up. "Ooh."
"Ooh what?" Their dying TARDIS asked.
"I'm not."
She looked at him with confusion while Kari just shook her head. "Not what?"
"Because it's not a junkyard. Don't you see? It's not a junkyard." The Doctor told her, getting more and more excited by the second.
"What is it then?" She asked, not following his train of thought.
"It's a TARDIS junkyard. Come on." He said, grabbing Kari's hand and the other woman's. "Oh, sorry. Do you have a name?" He asked, stopping suddenly.
"Seven hundred years, finally he asks." She said, her hands on her hip, clearly not impressed.
"But what do we call you?" The Doctor pressed.
"I think you call me… Sexy." She said proudly. The expression on the Doctor's face made Kari burst out laughing. "The giggles again. I think you need to kiss her, Doctor." He just looked at her with wide eyes. "Hurry up, we need to move."
The Doctor placed a hand under Kari's chin and tilted her head up. "Kari, stop." He whispered, before giving her a quick peck on the lips. It worked like a charm and she instantly fell silent, a red tint rushing up her neck and to her cheeks. "Right, come on then you, and you as well, sexy." He said, grasping both the hands and starting the trek to where the TARDIS had disappeared.
It didn't take them long to get there, and to look over at the mass before them. "A valley of half eaten TARDISes. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" The Doctor asked, once again excited.
"I'm thinking that all of my sisters are dead. That they were devoured, and that we are looking at their corpses." The mad woman now known as Sexy told him.
"Ah, sorry no. I wasn't thinking that." The Doctor admitted, feeling a little embarrassed.
"No. You were thinking you could build a working TARDIS console out of broken remnants of a hundred different models. And you don't care that it's impossible." Sexy said confidently.
Of course, she was completely right. "If it's not impossible, the Doctor doesn't want to know." Kari said, earning a slight smile from Sexy.
"It's not impossible as long as we're alive." The Doctor told them. "Rory and Amy need us. So yeah, we're going to build a TARDIS."
"Well, this is going to be an interesting experience. I know nothing about any of this, so maybe I should just stay out of the way." Kari said, knowing that she was going to be completely useless at this point.
Sexy just smiled at her, before placing both of her hands on the side of Kari's head and closing her eyes. Kari just felt the stream of information flow into her head, just like it had the other times, such as when she had to make her own sonic screwdriver.
Kari let out a groan. "Will you please stop doing that?" She moaned, rubbing her forehead. "I swear I asked you to warn me the next time you was going to do something like that."
The Doctor looked at them in confusion. "What happened?"
"Someone just streamed all the information I would ever need to know about a TARDIS into my head." Kari told him, looking like she was about to sulk. "Now know more than just how to fly her properly."
"Good, now you can help us." He said, kissing the top of her head before walking off to get started with the construction of the console Kari knew would only just get them to Amy and Rory.
It was a short time later, and Kari was helping Sexy with checking through a few items. "Ask me." Sexy said, tossing yet another piece of an old TARDIS over her shoulder.
"What?"
"You have a question. Ask me."
Kari threw the item in her hand, making it land a few feet in front of her. "Why do I feel so sad here? Seeing all this, the remains of you sister. It just makes me feel so… sad. And I don't know why."
"My beautiful Angel, you're a part of them, as they are a part of you." She said, making Kari frown. "The time vortex lives in all of us, me, my sisters, and you. "
"But how? How did the time vortex get inside of me? I wasn't born with it, how did it get there?" Kari asked, throwing something else away, but just a little bit harder and more forceful. It was easy to see she was getting worked up over it all.
"It was me." Sexy told her, making Kari frown once more. "I told you before, but it was too early. But now you've asked. It was me."
"What do you mean, it was you? How can it have been you?" The woman just took a hold of Kari's hand, and she watched as both hands connected began to glow brightly, the golden mist Kari was so accustomed to seeing building around their hands.
Sexy let go and the light faded, but the shock in Kari's eyes didn't. "That… that light… the thing that…" Kari really didn't know what to say. "But that… that was…" Once again the tears were building in her eyes. She had never expected to find out so much from the TARDIS, especially so much about herself and what had happened to her. "But, why?"
"Oh my darling. My beautiful, golden, Angel of Time. Because you were needed somewhere else." She said, reaching up to Kari's face a brushing away the water that was beginning to spill from her eyes. "Now, no more tears. The Doctor and I both hate to see you upset and cry." The way she had said it, it was in such a motherly way, that Kari just nodded her head and quickly wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Everything okay?" The Doctor asked, coming over with a mass of wires and devices in his arms.
"Yeah, I'm just having a complete mental and emotional break down. Who knew talking to Sexy could be so… interesting." Kari told him, grabbing some more junk off the ground and inspecting it. She was trying to make herself useful, to actually help them build the console, but she had too many other thought running marathons through her mind.
The Doctor just smiled at her, understanding that there were things that she wasn't telling him. He trusted her enough to know that she would eventually tell him what was going on, she always did, even if it did end up with her screaming and shouting at him. At least she would be talking to him.
"Bond the tube directly into the tachyon diverter." Sexy called over to the Doctor.
"Yes, yes. I have actually rebuilt a TARDIS before, you know." He snapped, dragging a very large panel across the ground with the help of Kari. At least she felt like she was doing something useful. "I know what I'm doing."
"You're like a nine year old trying to rebuild a motorbike in his bedroom." Sexy said, before looking over at him. "And you never read the instructions."
"I always read the instructions." The Doctor protested, causing Kari to roll her eyes.
"Nope, you don't. You tend to throw them into black holes or supernovas." Kari said, trying to contain the grin that was forcing its way onto her face.
Sexy smiled at her before glaring at the Doctor. "There's a sign on my front door. You have been walking past it for seven hundred years. What does it say?" She asked him.
"That's not instructions."
"There's an instruction at the bottom. What does it say?" Sexy asked him once more, her hands firmly on her hips.
"Pull to open." He told her, struggling with the panel as Kari wasn't really putting that much effort into pulling it now. She was waiting for her favourite part of the conversation to arrive.
"Yes, and what do you do?"
"I push!" He shouted, making Kari jump just a little.
"Every single time. Seven hundred years. Police box doors open out the way."
"I think I have earned the right to open my front doors any way I want." The Doctor told her throwing down the chains connected to the panel he had been pulling and storming over to the woman.
"Your front doors? Have you any idea how childish that sounds?" Sexy scoffed, not scared by his attitude in the slightest.
"You are not my mother." The Doctor warned her, turning around and walking back over to where Kari was standing, watching the events unfold.
"And you are not my child. Someone else is." Sexy told him.
Instantly the Doctor stopped and spun around to face her once more. "You know, since we're talking with mouths, not really an opportunity that comes along very often, I just wanted to say, you know, you have never been very reliable." That was when Kari decided to walk over and join them, rather than stand to the side and just watch.
"And you have?" Sexy asked him. "My Angel is the reliable one out of the pair of you."
"You didn't always take me where I wanted to go." The Doctor protested.
Kari placed her hand on the Doctor's arm, hoping to calm him down a little. "No, but she always took you where you needed to go. She brought you to me, she brought you to my back garden one night. She brought you to me and whisked me away with you." She told him softly.
The Doctor just gazed at her. "She did. Look at us talking. Wouldn't it be amazing if we could always talk, even when you're stuck inside the box?" He asked, getting a little excited.
"You know I'm not constructed that way. I exist across all space and time, and you talk and run around and bring home strays."
Kari quickly reached forward as Sexy's legs gave way. "One of the kidneys has failed. We need to hurry up and get this console done. Now." Kari said firmly as she tried to help the Sexy mad woman to stand.
"Using a console without a proper shell. It's not going to be safe." The Doctor told them both.
Sexy just looked up at him. "This body has about eighteen minutes left to live. The universe we're in will reach absolute zero in three hours. Safe is relative."
"Then we need to get a move on, Eh, old girl?" The Doctor told her, helping her to stand with Kari.
"We're going to do this." Kari whispered to her. "You know that just as much as I do. We're going to get you back where you belong so you can kick that stupid asteroids backside."
The woman just smiled at her. "Sometimes it's reassuring know that you know so much about what is happening."
"And sometimes it's just a great big headache." Kari admitted. "Sometimes I don't like knowing what's going to happen, knowing who's going to die."
Sexy just let out a sigh. "You can't save everyone. I know you want to, and I know how hard you try to save everyone, but you can't. Everything has its time, my Angel. You should know that by now. Now, go and help the Doctor, and remember that I will always look after you, both of you."
For some reason, Kari couldn't resist rolling her eyes as she walked over to where the Doctor was struggling to carry something on his shoulder. "Need a hand with that?" She asked him, offering to help.
"Are you sure you are okay?" He asked her once more, putting the thing down on the ground so that he could giver her his full attention.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I just didn't expect her to be able to answer so many of my questions." Kari told him, slightly nervous. "Getting a little fed up with being called Angel all the time."
The Doctor just chuckled at her. "So, you're her Angel are you?"
Kari shrugged at him. "Apparently. I'm also the Angel of Time, still a complete mystery what that means as well."
"I'm sure you will work it out one day." He told her, putting an arm around her waist, pulling her closer and kissing the top of her head. "You are my brilliant Kari after all."
"I hate it when you say things like that." She moaned. "It means you know something more about it and won't tell me."
"Never mind that, come and help me with this." He said, going to pick up the giant round piece of machinery once more.
"You'll need to install the time rotor." Sexy called to the pair, as they carried it over to where the makeshift console was.
"Well, how is this going to make it through the rift? How?" The Doctor pondered, as Kari helped him slide the time rotor they had been carrying into place. "We're almost done. Thrust diffuser? Er, retroscope. Blue thingy."
"Also known as the stabilisers." Kari whispered to him. "Yes, I do believe I know more about a TARDIS now than you." She said, smirking away at him.
Before he had a chance to say anything clever to her, Sexy was talking once more. "Do you ever wonder why I chose you all those years ago?" She called, playing with a metal coat hanger.
"We chose you. You were unlocked." The Doctor told her, as he continued to inspect things on the console with Kari.
"Of course I was. I wanted to see the universe, so I stole a Time Lord and I ran away. And you were the only one mad enough. With a little help from a certain Angel." She said, smirking at Kari. Kari just shook her head and carried on with what she was trying to do.
"Right, perfect. Look at that." The Doctor called, dragging Kari away from the console so that they could get a better look at their handy work. "What could possible go wrong?"
"Well, for a start…" Kari started, only for the Doctor to clasp a hand over her mouth. She frowned at him, remembering the last time he had done that, and then it turned into a glare as something fell from the newly build console.
"That's fine. That always happens." He said, still covering her mouth. "No, hang on, wait." He cried, before rushing off, leaving Kari alone and returning with a red velvet rope. He quickly hooked it around the console, as something of a safety rope.
Kari had to admit, she was rather excited to be travelling in a makeshift TARDIS, with the Doctor and the TARDIS. It all seemed so surreal but after everything that had happened to her, what was normal any more?
"Right, okay, let's go. Followed that TARDIS." He said, tugging at the coat hanger, which could only be assumed as the leaver that made things work. There was a whirring sound, like something was powering down. "Oh, no, come on. There's rift engery everywhere, you can do it." He moaned, tapping away at the buttons on the console. "Okay, diverting all power to thrust. Let's be having you."
Sparks flew as he began to wind something, making Kari jump a little. "No, no, no, no!" The Doctor cried in frustration.
"What's wrong?" Sexy asked, checking herself over in a small mirror attached to the console.
"It can't hold the charge. It can't even start. There's no power. I've got nothing." He said, sounding a little defeated.
"Oh, my beautiful idiot. You have what you've always had. You've got me." She said, kissing the tips of her fingers lightly, before turning to Kari. "Give me your hand." Instantly Kari done as she was told, and she felt the time vortex running through her. The woman touched the time rotor, and the golden mist flowed through the pair of them and into it, making them dematerialise.
"This is awesome!" Kari shouted over the noise from the machine and the space around them. They were hurtling through space, only half protected.
"We've locked on to them." Sexy told the pair, holding on tightly. "They'll have to lower the shields when I'm close enough to phase inside."
"Can you get a message to Amy?" The Doctor asked her. "The telepathic circuits are online."
"Which one's Amy? The pretty one?" She asked, making Kari burst out laughing. She knew who the pretty one was, and it certainly wasn't going to be Amy. "Hello, Pretty." Sexy called, sending the message through.
"What the hell is that?" Came Rory's reply. Clearly he was in shock at what was happening.
"Don't worry. Telepathic messaging." The Doctor told him. "No, that's Rory." He said, making Kari giggle just a little bit more.
"You have to go to the old control room." Sexy called to Rory. "I'm putting the route in your head. When you get there use the purple slider on the nearest panel to lower the shields."
"The pretty one?" The Doctor questioned, looking at Kari for some help.
"Hey, that woman has a mind of her own. If she thinks that Rory is the pretty one, then that is her prerogative." She said, holding her hands up in defence.
"You'll have about twelve seconds before the room goes into phase with the invading Matrix. I'll send you the pass key when you get there. Good luck." Sexy said, ending the message.
The Doctor just looked at her. "How's he going to be able to take down the shields anyway? The House is in the control room."
Kari just shook her head. "Oh, my dear Doctor, you really do need to pay more attention sometimes. You were too busy thinking over why Rory was the pretty one to know what is really going on." He just looked at her, a confused expression on his face. "They're going to one of the old control rooms."
That just made him frown. "There aren't any old control rooms. They were all deleted or remodelled." He protested.
"I archive them, for neatness. I've got about thirty now." Sexy told him, a smug grin on her face, as well as on Kari's.
"But I've only changed the desktop, what, a dozen times?"
"So far, yes." Kari couldn't help but keep on grinning now.
The Doctor was getting flustered and frustrated now. "You can't archive something that hasn't happened yet."
"You can't."
"But she can." Kari added, still looking smug as well. "She really is brilliant, you know." The Doctor could only smile at her, knowing she was right and just glad to see her more relaxed and not crying.
"Keep going!" The Doctor cried. "You're doing it, you sexy thing."
The TARDIS-trapped-in-a-woman's-body looked up at the Doctor. "See, you do call me that. Is it my name?" She asked.
"You bet it's your name." The Doctor called to her, holding on tightly as they were shaken about even more and a few sparks came from the console.
"And it is the best name in the whole of reality." Kari said, beaming away. It was actually rather thrilling, her hair whipping around her face as they hurtled towards the blue box they were chasing. "They should be at the control room now." She called to Sexy over the noise.
The woman nodded at her. "Crimson. Eleven. Delight. Petrichor."
"Come on, Amy. Think it, think." Kari whispered to herself, thinking of the things she knew Amy would be thinking of. The red flag, the birthday cake with 11 candles burning brightly, her laughing away on her wedding day, and finally a water droplet crashing down on the ground.
"They did it. Shields down." Sexy called in delight. "We're coming through. Get out of the way or you'll be atomised." She warned Rory.
"Where are you coming through?" He asked her.
"I don't know." But Kari did. She knew where they were going to materialise and what was going to happen.
"You know, I'm not so sure that is this going to hold." Kari bellowed, a shower of sparks raining down on them all. The Doctor grabbed hold of her, and held onto her tightly as they finally started to materialise in the blue box.
The three of them all fell to the ground, Kari landing on top of the Doctor as they made it safely. "Doctor, Kari?" Amy called, hiding behind one of the coral beams that Kari had seen so many times before.
The Doctor was helping Kari up, before charging over to Amy and hugging her tightly. Kari, however, was more concerned with the woman struggling to stand. "Not good. Not good at all." The woman breathed, leaning on Kari for support. "How do you walk around in these things?"
"It's going to be okay." Kari told her. "Not long now, trust me, I know." The woman just smiled at her a little and nodded and the Doctor came over and joined them.
"Amy, this is… well, she's our TARDIS. Except she's a woman." The Doctor said, a little over excited. "She's a woman, and she's our TARDIS."
Amy just looked at the trio standing there blankly. "She's the TARDIS?"
"And she's a woman. She's a woman and she's the TARDIS." Kari was sure the Doctor was going to start jumping up and down from excitement now.
"Did you wish really hard?" Amy asked, looking at the Doctor. "And you, what did you do?" She said, pointing a finger at Kari.
"Shut up. Not like that." The Doctor said, getting slightly flustered.
"And I didn't do anything. What you blaming me for? It's because I'm a bit of a freak, isn't it? Or it is my weirdness that makes me get the blame for everything?" Kari asked, getting ready to sulk.
"Oh, my Angel." Sexy said, gently touching the side of Kari's face before turning to face Amy and Rory. "Hello. I'm Sexy." There was a grin on her face, and a smirk on Kari's now.
"Oh, still. Shut up." The Doctor said, not really knowing what else to do now.
"The environment has been breached. Nephew, kill them all." The House called out.
Everyone looked around the console room, looking for the green eyed Ood. "Where's Nephew?" Rory wondered, not being able to see him anywhere.
"He was standing right where you materialised." Amy pointed out.
They watched as the Doctor's face fell slightly. "Ah. Well, he must have been redistributed."
"Meaning what?" Rory asked, needing to know what had happened, the same as everyone else.
"He's in the air. You're breathing him." Kari told him, trying her best not to gag at the thought of what she was breathing.
Amy pulled a disgusted face and put her hand over her mouth and nose, trying to protect herself from the Ood particles in the air. "Oh, come on."
"Another Ood I failed to save." The Doctor said sadly.
"Doctor. I did not expect you." House said, making Amy and Rory feel slightly nervous still.
"Well, that's me all over, isn't it? Lovely old unexpected me." The Doctor said, walking around the console, sounding rather calm and in control.
"The big question is, now you're here, how to dispose of you? I could play with gravity." Suddenly they were all forced to the ground, an unseen force keeping them there. "Or I could evacuate the air from this room and watch you choke." He done as he said, and sucked all the air from the console room, leaving them choking and gasping for breath.
"You really don't want to do that." The Doctor tried to call, watching as Kari struggling to breath as well. Her eyes were wide with fear, and he just wanted to get over to her and help her.
"Why shouldn't I just kill you now?"
"Because then I won't be able to help you." The Doctor told him, as House let them breath once more. "Listen to your engines. Just listen to them. You don't have the thrust and you know it. Right now I'm your only hope for getting out of you little bubble through the rift, and into my universe." He said. "And mine's the one with the food in."
Kari heard Sexy whisper to Rory, whispering the word water. She made her way back over to her to help while the Doctor continued to deal with House. "You just have to promise not to kill us. That's all, just promise." The Doctor finished, watching Kari out of the corner of his eye and glad she seemed to be okay.
Amy looked at him in shock. "You can't be serious."
"I'm very serious. I'm sure it's an entity of its word."
"Doctor, she's burning up." Rory called, checking Sexy over. She was lying on the flood, looking very unwell. "She's asking for water."
Kari just shook her head. "Hang in there, you sexy, magnificent, old girl. It will be over soon, I promise. The Doctor knows what he's doing." She whispered to her, trying to reassure her that everything really was going to be okay.
"I always liked it when he called me old girl." Sexy whispered back to her.
That was when the Doctor and Amy came over as well. "Hey, just a little long, old girl." The Doctor said, squeezing her hand a little.
"You want me to give me word? Easy. I promise." House called to them all.
"Fine. Okay. I trust you. Just delete… oh, er, thirty percent of the TARDIS rooms, you'll free up thrust enough to make it through. Activate subroutine Sigma Nine." The Doctor replied, waiting fro his plan to come into play.
"Why would you tell me this?"
"Because we want to get back to our universe as badly as you do. And I'm nice." The Doctor said, getting back to his feet.
"Yes, I can delete rooms. And I can also rid myself of vermin if I delete this room first. Thank you, Doctor. Very helpful. Goodbye, Time Lord. Goodbye, little humans. Goodbye, Idris."
Kari closed her eyes tightly, as they were all taking over by a blinding light. She felt something shifting, something changing around her, and she opened her eyes when she heard the Doctor's voice. "Yes. I mean, you could do that, but it just won't work. Hardwired fail-safe. Living things from rooms that are deleted are automatically deposited in the main console room. But thanks for the lift." There was a smug grin on the Doctor's face as he spoke, and Kari couldn't help but smile as well.
"We are in your universe now, Doctor. Why should it matter to me in which room you die? I can kill you just as easily here as anywhere. Fear me. I've killed hundreds of Time Lords." House gloated, trying to make himself seem even more scarier.
"Fear me. I've killed them all." The Doctor replied gloomily.
"Oi, not all of them." Kari called over to him, giving him a wave. "But you know what, it looks like House has won."
The Doctor nodded at her, the fainted glimmer of a smile on his face. "Yeah, you're right. You're both right, you've completely won. Oh, you can kill us in oodles of really inventive ways, but before you do kill us, allow me and my friends, Kari, Amy and Rory to congratulate you on being an absolutely worthy opponent."
The Doctor gave Amy a little nudge and she joined him in give a round of applause. "Congratulations." She called, playing along with the Doctor.
"Yep, you've defeated us. Me and my lovely friends here, and last but definitely not least, the TARDIS Matrix herself. A living consciousness you ripped out of this very control room and locked up into a human body." The Doctor said, looking over at her. "And look at her."
"Doctor, she's stopped breathing." Rory told him, the concern in his voice.
"Enough. That is enough."
"No, it's never enough. You forced the TARDIS into a body so she'd burn out safely, a very long way away from this control room. A flesh body can't hold the TARDIS Matrix and live." The Doctor explained. "Look at her body, House."
"And you think I should mourn her?"
At that point Kari stood up a smile working its way onto her face. "No" She said, getting everyone's attention. "He thinks you should be very, very careful about what you let back into this control room. You took her from her home." Kari could feel her eyes starting to burn slightly. The woman's body that was on the floor convulsed slightly, the golden mist expelling from her mouth. "But now she's back in the box again, and she is free."
Suddenly the golden stream flew around the console room, floating through the air, making Kari smile even more.
"No. Doctor, stop this. Argh! Stop this now." House cried, as the TARDIS reclaimed her place in her home.
"Oh, look at our girl go. Look at her go. Bigger on the inside. You see, House?" The Doctor said, beaming away himself.
"Make it stop."
"That's your problem. Size of a planet, but inside you are just so small." The Doctor said, ignoring the pleas for help, for him to call her off.
"Make it stop."
Kari stepped over to the Doctor, and slipped her hand into his. "Finish him off, girl." The Doctor said, waving a hand and turning to the console. The eerie green colour that had taken the warm, orange glow started to disappear, leaving the room dark.
"Doctor? Angel? Are you there?" They both turned around when they heard the voice. "It's so very dark in here."
They walked over to where a figure stood, this figure of the woman who had become their TARDIS. "We're here." The Doctor told her, holding onto Kari tightly.
"I've been looking for a word. A big, complicated word, but so sad. I've found it now." She told them both.
"What word?" The Doctor asked.
"Alive." Kari and the woman said at the same time. "I'm alive." The woman finished.
The Doctor frowned. "Alive isn't sad."
"It is when it's over." Kari said once again at the same time as the TARDIS.
"I'll always be here, but this is when we talked, and now even that has come to an end. There's something I didn't get to say to you both."
"Goodbye?" The Doctor suggested, thinking that was what she wanted to say.
"No. I just wanted to say hello. Hello, Doctor. It's so very, very nice to meet you. Hello, my Angel. I'm glad to have meet my precious girl." There were tears in Kari's eyes, as well as the Doctor's.
"Please. I don't want you to… please…" The Doctor said, trying to keep himself together.
"Don't leave us…" Kari whispered. "I need you…" But it was too late, the figure faded and the TARDIS returned to its normal warm glow. "We need you."
The Doctor pulled Kari closer towards him, wrapping his arms tightly around her as they both struggled to deal with the emotions that they were feeling. The TARDIS had answered so many questions for Kari, but that had just led to so many more.
"I can't… I just…" Kari mumbled, pulling herself away from the Doctor and charging off through the TARDIS and locking herself in her room. Her mind was turning everything over, and trying to make sense of it all.
She looked up at the ceiling, knowing that she would be listening to her. "I need you, and so does the Doctor. We both need you so much." She whispered, getting a sad hum from the ship. Kari took a deep breath and let some more tears stream down her cheeks.
She knew that the Doctor would be fixing something, and sending Amy and Rory off to bed. But right now she didn't know if she could face him, not with the amount of questions that were swimming in her mind. She needed to talk to someone, someone who understood her situation, but wasn't the Doctor.
A/N: Has anyone worked it out yet? Anyone at all? Someone must have worked it out.
Okay, so I took a long time to sit down and seriously think about this episode, and I did, and I'm pretty pleased with how it has turned out.
Once again, thank you all for the fantastic reviews, you guys totally rock! And thank you to everyone who has favourited/followed, you guys rock too.
The next episode that is due is going to be a pretty tough one for Kari. I finished writing it all a few hours ago now.
Anyway, keep those wonderful reviews coming, and I will keep on track with my writing.
Pippa.