When she opened her eyes again, she was in a room that was a lot brighter than the engine room she was in. She groaned, placing a hand on her head and sitting up, waiting for the blood to flow back down and for her vision to clear up.
When it did, she slowly stood up, blinking as she adjusted to where she was. It didn't take long for her to figure out she'd jumped again, but as she looked around, she noticed that she was alone.
She was in a TARDIS console room with bluish green lighting, a meshed floor, and coral pillars. She was either with Nine or Ten, then. And the Doctor appeared to not be there. She took a deep breath and placed her hands on the console, feeling a familiar warmth surge through her. Thanks to Twelve, she already knew that it was just her way of saying hello, but she still pulled her hands away the moment after it surged through her.
"Sorry," She said to the TARDIS, "Still trying to, er, get used to all this." She gestured to herself and the console. The TARDIS hummed at her, sending a feeling of warmth throughout the room. She smiled and walked towards the console and tried to make sense out of which point in the Doctor's timeline she was in. If that was even possible.
She really hoped that she didn't end up landing directly after she first jumped in the Doctor's perspective. She'd have absolutely no idea on how to even explain that to him. Or even how he'd react. He'd taken the TV show explanation pretty well- which reminded her- she had to ask him how he did that.
She pulled the monitor towards her to see if there was any indicator on when she was. The sides of the monitor were covered in pink and yellow sticky notes. Some of them had random Gallifreyan symbols on them, while others- she couldn't see them. Well, more like she could see them but every time she tried to read what was written on them, her eyes skirted onto a note with a Gallifreyan message on it. Like her eyes didn't want to read the note. Which was stupid, because she controlled her eyes, not the other way round.
She did manage to be able to read one note, though. It was a long piece of ruled white notebook paper taped onto the monitor that had "Grocery List" as its heading, and had a bunch of items written on it in two different sets of handwriting- a round cursive she recognised as her own and a slanted, thin cursive that was neat and elegant at some places and looked like a seismograph reading at others. At the bottom of the list, there was a note written in capital letters, reading "Only buy what's on the list".
She turned to see what was on the monitor, directing her gaze away from the sticky notes, which seemed to be insistent on making sure she didn't read them. It showed a set of blueprints of what looked like a plane-shaped spaceship, and had a yellow squiggly line going through a path to a place that was labelled as the engine room.
She looked up as the door to the TARDIS opened with a bang, steam coming in. Through the steam came the silhouette of a tall and skinny man with extremely spiky hair. Amara exhaled softly, placing a hand on her chest. In came a man wearing a brown pinstripe suit. He had extremely messy brown hair that was sticking up everywhere, and was covered with black stains all over his face and clothes. He closed the doors behind him and turned towards the console when he noticed Amara.
A huge smile made its way onto his face. "Mara! Hello!" He walked towards the console. She smiled back at him, waving slightly. "Hi! Um- what happened?" She gestured to him and he shrugged. "The usual. Got bored, decided to go have lunch with Marie Antoinette, wanted to do something fun so I swept the local system for distress calls, found one, saved a bunch of people, and now-" He pulled down a lever, causing the TARDIS to jolt. Amara grabbed onto the edge of the console as the hourglass inside the column in the middle of the console started to move up and down. "I topped off their amazement by disappearing!" He turned to her and grinned, pulling another lever, making the TARDIS stop oscillating.
"Anyway, enough about my brilliance," He then reached into his pocket and pulled out the same blue book and a pen before turning to her. "What have you been upto? Where'd you come from?"
"I don't think I can tell that to you."
He frowned. "Why not? It's what you're supposed to be doing, you enforced that rule, that's what happens every time- you appear, you tell me where you are in the- oh." His high-pitched bullet-train speed tangent ending with a soft 'oh' concerned Amara. "What?"
"You were in my future before this, weren't you?" She nodded slowly. "And before that, you and I first met Rose." She nodded again.
He stared down at his book, flipping through a bunch of pages before marking something with his pen. He looked up again, a smile plastered on his face. "Is this your first time meeting this me?"
"Am I supposed to be saying that? Because the you in the place I was in before said that the most important rule was for me to not tell you anything."
He tilted his chin and scratched the back of his neck, "Well, not anything, per se, you still give me a few hints from time to time and may have accidentally told me a major event-"
"What?!" Amara was one hundred percent sure her 'what' surpassed the intensity of all of Ten's 'whats' and she would've been ready to fight anyone who disagreed.
The Doctor shook his head, laughing slightly. "I'm joking, I'm joking, you really think you of all people would accidentally let something slip?"
"At this point, I'm ready to believe anything because I honestly can't tell whether you're joking or not since we have a spoiler rule and you're known for being textbook enigmatic at times." She shrugged, making his smile widen. "Oh, that's perfect, then! I get to annoy you!"
"How is that supposed to be a good thing?!"
"It's fun." He shrugged, and she rolled her eyes. "Moonji."
"Okay, so when do I find out what the hell is happening to me?" Amara was sitting on the captain's chair in the console room, watching the Doctor dry off his hair with a fluffy blue towel a while later. He turned to her and shrugged.
"Future you said that I will learn about everything 'pretty soon'. When's that?"
"Usually, that means the next place you jump to." He threw the towel behind him, ignoring Amara's sigh of disapproval. It landed perfectly on the railing. Amara turned to him, eyebrows raised. "So?"
"So what?"
"Aren't you gonna tell me why I'm doing this?"
He stared at her for a moment. "Oh, yeah! Right. At this point, the closest thing I can come up with to an actual explanation is that this is a side effect of you looking into the heart of the TARDIS. Or, well, the TARDIS opening up in front of you."
"Didn't Rose do the exact same thing?"
"Ah, you see? That's where I've hit a sitch as well. But there's no other explanation that makes sense." He tilted his chin, "Well, 'trapped in a fanfiction world' was close, but we both ended up deciding that one was bogus, anyway," He looked at her, "It could be arbitrary as well since, you know, the TARDIS is sentient and all, and looking at her heart has different effects on people, like Blon turned back into an egg, Rose became Bad Wolf, and you," He pointed at her, "Started jumping around my timeline."
Amara shook her head. "No, no, that doesn't make sense." She stood up and started walking around. "Blon turned into an egg again because she wanted a fresh start and Rose became Bad Wolf because she wanted to save you." She stopped walking and threw her hands up, facing the Doctor. "I never wanted to be thrown into an unpredictable loop in an already unpredictable roller coaster!"
"I think need is a more accurate term than want when it comes to what the TARDIS does when you look into her heart."
"Why would I need this?!" Amara exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. "Why would anybody need this? This- this- this doesn't make sense, I don't need this, I can't need this! There is nothing that I've needed less than being stuck in a fanfiction trope!"
The Doctor shrugged, smiling slightly. "You're confusing 'want' and 'need' again."
She scowled at him. "Oh yeah! Because jumping around someone's timeline will end up fixing everything whether I like it or not."
"We almost never want what we need, Mara, but that doesn't change the fact that it's something we need and that we need it for a reason."
Amara opened her mouth to say something before shaking her head. "Do you find out why I need it? Don't tell me why I do, but tell me if you know."
"I don't," He shrugged. "That's a question only you'll be able to answer. Anyway," He reached behind him and threw something at her. "This appeared on the console some time ago when you were taking a shower."
Amara caught the notebook and looked at it. It was a dark brown- almost black- hardcover journal that had golden flowers painted all over it, all of them connected by golden vines with leaves and swirls. Her name was written in an elegant cursive at the bottom of the cover and there were two ribbon bookmarks sticking out- one that was a dark orange and another that was a golden silver. So this was the notebook Twelve had mentioned earlier.
She opened it and flipped through. The first few pages were blank and had small hexagon shaped boxes in them, all connected by a line and all moving in somewhat of a straight line. The later pages, which were the majority, were all ruled. She looked up at the Doctor, who was staring at her expectantly.
"This is how we keep track of our timelines, right?" She looked up at him. He nodded. "The boxes in the first few pages are for you to write down the name of the episode you experience whenever you jump, and then you write down everything that happened during that time in the later pages."
"What if I jump to a non-episode point?"
He shrugged. "I think you end up making up a name then, I dunno. We never show each other our journals. Oh- and also- you're supposed to fill in the box only after you jump away from somewhere."
She nodded. "Is that all or is there anything else I need to know?"
He shrugged. "Not that I remember anything else. At least, these are the rules you insisted on as far as I know."
"Right." She nodded, placing the book in her pocket (the TARDIS was kind enough to provide her with bigger on the inside pockets ever since she started travelling with the Doctor), and the two of them sat in silence for a few moments before Amara cleared her throat. "So, um, what do we do now?"
The Doctor looked at her and shrugged. "I dunno, erm, do you want to go somewhere? How far are you on your bucket list?"
"I wrote down like, ten places? I don't know, it's far from being complete." She shrugged, getting up.
"I mean, how many places have you visited in it so far? Your bucket list always has new places added to it."
"None yet." She walked towards the console and placed her hands on the edges, feeling the same warmth again. It startled her, but she didn't pull her hands away. "I've only been doing this for a week, and most of my trips so far were either near death experiences or heart attack inducing ones, which, now that I think about it, practically mean the same thing when I'm with you."
The Doctor pouted. "Come on! What'll your life be like if you don't have a few of those?"
"Filled with less anxiety?"
"More fun, Kashyap. I meant more fun." He pulled a lever down, making the TARDIS start vibrating softly.
"I do not understand the way your mind works. Anyway," She looked up at him from the other side of the console (he'd managed to skip there to start up the TARDIS), "There's something I've been meaning to ask you."
"Yeah?"
"Do I need to be vaccinated or anything? You know, there's all sorts of alien viruses out there and I'll be travelling around, and, well, I don't want to die of some random alien plague that turns you purple before blocking off all of your major blood vessels and/or respiratory pathways and making your head explode or something like that." The Doctor frowned and she rolled her eyes. "It was just an example!"
"An extremely unlikely one." He reached into his pockets and pulled out a white bottle and threw it at her. She caught it and opened it, frowning at the purple gummy-bears inside. She looked up at him. "Are these multivitamins or something?"
"Immunity boosters. They improve your disease resistance by altering your genes slightly, and before you ask, they're perfectly safe. Been tested on multiple humans and they've all remained the same, except they led healthier lives. And it is one hundred percent vegetarian, and is completely cruelty free. I was there when they were manufactured."
Amara smiled at him. "Good. Do I need to take these only once or is this like a regular thing?"
"Just take one now and you'll be good."
She took out one of the mauve bears and popped it into her mouth, waiting for it to dissolve. It tasted a lot like strawberries and oranges, making her screw up her face at the sourness. She shook her head and shuddered after swallowing the booster. She closed the lid of the bottle tightly and threw it to the Doctor again. "Thanks, by the way."
"Come on, Amara, you're my best friend. You don't have to thank me for anything." He placed the bottle in his pocket and turned to her again. "Now, first thing on your bucket list."
She shrugged sheepishly, the blood rushing to her cheeks. "Didn't really specify a place. It's just somewhere with snow."
The Doctor grinned at her. "Oh, I've got the perfect place in mind. Allonsy, Amara Kashyap!" He yelled, pulling down another lever, making the TARDIS lurch.
"Are you sure this is warm enough?" Amara asked, zipping up her grey jacket. She was wearing a huge, fluffy grey jacket with red patterns on it and a huge padded hood, thick black pants, a beanie in case it got extra cold, a scarf, mittens, snow boots, and thick socks.
"I already told you that I am." The Doctor stood at the console, wearing the exact same thing he was wearing before, except for the addition of his classic brown trench coat. He was playing with his screwdriver, leaning against the edge of the console.
"Are you sure it'll be warm enough for me, though?"
"Yes, I am." He said in an exasperated tone. Amara felt slightly bad about repeatedly asking him the same question, but, in her defence, she was prone to getting really cold really easily and would be extremely unpleasant to be around if that was the case.
"The amount of trust you have in me is astonishing."
She rolled her eyes and walked down the stairs when he walked towards the doors. He opened them and waited for her to step through.
When she stepped out, she felt cool air hit her face, but thankfully, it wasn't horrible because of all the layers she was wearing, and the hood of the jacket worked surprisingly well against the cold wind.
She felt the ground crunch under her shoes as she slowly walked outside the TARDIS. They were in what looked like the clearing of a forest full of pine trees that had snow bunched up in the junctions of the trunk and branches. In front of her was a pond with a waterfall in it, both of them frozen and in a very light shade of blue. The waterfall came from a small cliff made completely of grey rocks, all of which were topped with snow.
Amara gasped, mist coming out of her mouth as she did so. A smile slowly formed on her face as she continued to look around where they were, being as close to the TARDIS as possible. Danger or no danger, she did not want to get lost.
She heard the crunching of someone else's footsteps behind her and she turned around to see the Doctor walking towards her, his hands in his pockets and a yellow and red scarf around his neck. She didn't know where he got it from, but judging by the fact that this was a man who managed to somehow produce a glass of water from his pocket, she wasn't that surprised.
"So?" He asked her as he came to stand next to her. "What do you think?"
"It's beautiful." She said, slowly walking towards the frozen pond. "Where are we?"
"Not that far from Earth, we're in the local system. Still in the Mutter's Spiral- that's the Milky Way, if you were wondering. This planet's called Parusala. Completely uninhabited. Too cold for the creatures that live in the local system, at least. It's the furthest from the star all the planets here revolve around, and it's really far from the planet before this one. There's no other planets nearby for ages. Isolated and quiet, just the way I like it." The Doctor tried to ignore Amara's intent gaze on him as he told her everything. He'd gotten used to it- she'd always listened intently to anything he said, whether it was some random tangent about banana pancake dispensers or all his plans for the cursed toaster that never seemed to work unless Amara hit it at least 4 times or something deeply philosophical, but he couldn't deny that he'd get extremely self-conscious whenever it happened.
He turned to her and she smiled, making him smile back at her. "Right, then, enough of me infodumping on you," He bent down and picked up some snow. When he stood up, he saw that Amara was backing away from him really fast. He shook his head and threw the snowball at her anyway. She screamed and swerved to the right, narrowly missing it. He made more snowballs and threw them in her general direction as she ran towards the TARDIS to hide. "You do know that hiding's useless, right?" He called out to her, receiving no response. He shook his head and slowly walked towards the TARDIS.
Amara leaned against the cool surface of the TARDIS, standing perfectly still and screwing her ears to hear if the Doctor was close or not. She could hear his footsteps crunching towards her, becoming closer each time. She slowly edged her way to the other side of the TARDIS, trying to be as quiet as possible. She soon reached the TARDIS's doorway, the 'Pull to open' sign gleaming at her. She attempted to open the doors, but they didn't budge. "What the-'' She murmured, turning around, only to be pelted with a large snowball on her shoulder. She couldn't really feel anything since the jacket shielded her from most of the snow, but she scowled at the Doctor, who was doubling over laughing, holding an armful of snowballs.
His laughter, however, was short lived as Amara threw a snowball at him, where it hit him square in the stomach. He looked up at her, his eyes narrowed and a playful smirk on his face. "Oh, it is on."
She ran behind the TARDIS as he aimed another snowball at her, hearing it hit the doors with a thwack. "Oi, that's not fair!" She heard him protest. "No hiding behind the TARDIS!"
She smirked and made her way to the other side, throwing a snowball at him the moment she was in his line of sight. "I was making a plan of attack. That doesn't count as hiding." She swerved to avoid a snowball of his, only to get hit by another one. She threw three of her own in response, one of them hitting the Doctor.
"Fine, no going behind the TARDIS for any reason whatsoever!" He threw a snowball at her and she ducked, narrowly missing it.
About an hour later, the two of them sat by the pond, a huge snowman between the two of them. Amara suggested it halfway through the snowball fight since the two of them had come up with a billion random rules and quite frankly, it got old very quickly.
The snowman had eyes made of stones and a stick for a nose (the Doctor refused to sacrifice his carrots for the snowman even though he stated that he hated them- when she questioned it, he just shrugged and responded with "I'm the Doctor."). Amara had gone in and got out the Fourth Doctor's scarf and hat and placed them on the snowman. The Doctor was obviously not happy with the choice of clothing, but Amara jokingly telling him that Parusala would always have a guardian looking after it, he seemed to calm down a bit. Before telling her that a snowman couldn't possibly protect a planet from an alien invasion.
"Why do you keep doing that?" Amara looked up from her hands towards the Doctor, who was frowning at her questioningly.
"Doing what?"
"Staring down at your hands like that." He nodded towards them. She shrugged. "I dunno- they seem to be the part that glows first when I'm about to, well-"
"Leave?" She nodded slowly at him. "Yeah. I don't want to be surprised with an exit again. Trying to find a pattern, or a sign, or-"
"It's completely random, both where you jump and how long you stay."
"Why?" She groaned, looking up at the frost-blue sky.
"Maybe a side effect of it being my timeline? You know, since I'm mysterious and unpredictable."
"And annoying." She muttered, crossing her legs. She turned to him, "Am I gone a lot?" That had been another question nagging her.
He shook his head. "No, you're not. You usually stay from hours to months, I can never really tell, but you always come back as soon as possible. The longest you've been gone was about a week, I think."
Amara smiled slightly at that. "That's good, then." She had another question regarding something Twelve had told her, but she knew she couldn't ask him the answer to that one. Or at least, this version of him. Not without accidentally spoiling something. So she was ready to wait for the answer to that later.
"Yeah, it is." The Doctor smiled back at her.
