The TARDIS had settled itself quite nicely after the bumpy ride, the Doctor found himself on the floor straddling Rose, which was not really such a bad position, when he thought about it, but also this was not the time for that. What it was the time for was to do a once over of the console to make sure that do permanent damage was done.
"You know," Rose commented, as he continued to lay on top of her, "I could rather get quite used to this!"
"I'm sure you could," replied the Doctor, "but…"
"HEY!" Came a voice from somewhere in the console room, but the Doctor couldn't place the position of where the voice was coming from.
"What?" Asked the Doctor, he got up off or Rose.
"The TARDIS speaks?" Rose asked as she too got to her feet. "When did she learn to do that?"
"Dunno, maybe when Mickey tried to help me fix something on the TARDIS he installed an Artificial Intelligence program," the Doctor shrugged, "maybe Mickey's not such an idiot after all!"
Rose could do nothing but glare at the Doctor. As much as he liked her, he had little tolerance for Mickey, maybe it was because Mickey never really fought to keep Rose in his life as much as his desires to keep her had indicated. Certainly, he had latched onto her at a young age, so she was always around. As a result, pursuing her to get her to become his girlfriend was not that big of a deal, but as soon as competition for her had set in, it had clearly upset him, but he could never figure out what to do about it.
"HEY GET ME OUT OF HERE!" this time the voice seemed to have a frustrated tone to it and was followed by a rattling sound.
"Who is me, and where is here?" the Doctor asked.
"Dawn Summers," was the reply, "I somehow got stuck under this stupid catwalk that you two are screwing around on!"
The Doctor stepped back and spun around so that he could get a good look at Dawn's face. "How on Earth did you get in there?" His voice betrayed a curious squeal.
"It must have happened when we did the emergency re-materialization," Rose responded, "we apparently materialized around you."
"Wow," the Doctor said, "only managed that once or twice before, but this is the first time somebody's gotten trapped under that catwalk. What were you doing, lying down?"
"I was attempting to run away from that crazy Police Box thingy, I tripped and fell, the Police Box was about to drop on me, and the next thing I know, I'm in here, wherever here is."
"Well, you're inside the TARDIS," Rose said, as she watched the Doctor pull the catwalk floor up, so that Dawn could get out, "quite literally,"
"Wow," Dawn looked at the décor of the TARDIS, "looks nice," she caught a glimpse of the doors, with the words POLICE BOX written backwards, "wait a sec…we're inside that crazy Police Box aren't we?"
"Actually, yes," the Doctor said.
"Wow!" She began to walk around. "Wait until Andrew gets a load of this place, he's into some of this trans-dimensional stuff," her eyes narrowed, "it is trans-dimensional, right?"
"Yes."
"How big is it? Are there other rooms," she found what looked like a doorway that leads deeper into the TARDIS, she went up to it and poked her head through the door, "these hallways must go on for miles!"
"Not quite," the Doctor said.
"Wow," Dawn said, "hey, maybe I should go tell Buffy I'm OK, before she starts to have an impromptu memorial service for me,"
"Dawn," Buffy said as she looked at the TARDIS, or more precisely the ground where the TARDIS landed, "of all of the times for you to have one of your comedicly clumsy spells,"
"She's gone, crushed by a Police Box," Xander said.
"Wait a second," said Giles, "I've seen this before."
"Of course," Buffy said, "your British, don't you like have them all around London or something?"
"Well they stopped using them when I was a kid, pretty much," Giles said, "but No. I mean, I have seen this particular Police Box before. But If I'm correct, then…well, what is he doing here."
"He?" Buffy asked. "He who?"
"The Doctor."
"Doctor…who?" Faith asked hopefully.
"Nobody knows his name, not really, trouble is I don't think even he does."
"Well this Doctor whoever he is better not come out of there, because when he does, I'm going to kill him for crushing my sister to death!"
"Oh no," Giles said, "If this is what I think she is, then she's not dead."
"You mean…?" Buffy began to pound on the door. "Hey in there, open up!"
All at once, the doors swung open and the Doctor popped his head out.
"Oh, hello," the Doctor smiled, "which one of you is Buffy?"
"That would be me," She responded, "and you better have my sister in there, and she'd better be OK, otherwise I'm going to set aside my rule of not harming human beings and kill you!"
"Buffy!" Dawn called out, as she threw herself into Buffy's arms, "I'm OK!"
"Dawn!" She wrapped her arms around Dawn. "You're OK!"
"Yes, Buffy,"
"I just love family reunions," the Doctor smiled, "don't you?"
"Yeah," Rose said, "but you need to start a family before that family reunion thing really works for you,"
"Hey Andrew," Dawn said, "you remember a few weeks ago you were going on about this strange Tran-dimensional theory you had."
"You mean the one where I could theoretically put the city of Los Angeles in your living room?" Andrew asked.
"Yeah."
"It was just a crazy theory,"
"It's not crazy, and it's not a theory," she pulled Andrew towards the TARDIS, "look!"
"Wow!" Andrew said, as he spun around in the TARDIS console room. "It's true!"
Buffy leaned in towards Giles, "is this the man you were expecting to see?"
"No, the man I was expecting to see was a bit of a dandy with white hair in his 50's."
"Could be his son," Faith said.
"Possibly," Giles said.
"After all how long ago did you see this guy?"
"It was in the '70, when I was still in my Ripper stage,"
"Ripper?" Rose asked with a laugh
"Ripper?" The Doctor asked. "That's a name I haven't heard in a long, long time."
Giles stepped forwards, "I dropped the Ripper name years ago,"
"My God," the Doctor said, as he moved around Giles, "it is you, tell me, are you still practicing black magic?"
"I don't practice too much any more,"
"He and a friend named…something Pain…"
"Ethan Rayne. We created that demon…" he caught the Doctor's look, "don't worry, most of them know about that shady part of my past."
"Yes, and I was still attached to U.N.I.T. at the time," he turned to Rose, "that was when they were still somewhat considered to be the good guys, under Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart, anyway when he created the demon, U.N.I.T had me investigate," he looked at the crater, "still able to raise a little hell, I see,"
Giles shoved his hands in his pockets, "actually this is Buffy's doing."
"Actually, Spike,"
"Whatever."
"You talk as if you are the same man that I met, but you're not," Giles looked the Doctor over.
"Oh, but I am, it's a long story,"
"Maybe you can tell me how you do it, sometime."
Chloe stepped off the bus, and began to whisper into Faith's ear.
"Hey yo," Faith said, "so you're a Doctor or something, right?"
"They call me the Doctor, yes."
"So, we have some people on the bus that could use some doctoring," Faith said.
"I'm not that kind of a Doctor," the Doctor said, regrettably, "but it doesn't mean I don't know about first aid, if somebody needs it."
"OK, can you play ambulance with that thing or something, because we have some people on that bus who need some serious medical attention, and I don't think simple first aid is going to work."
"I'm not a taxi service," The Doctor protested.
Rose looked at him sternly, but silently.
"But I'll see what I can do," he quickly added.
Rose smiled, as they followed Faith to the bus, "Oh god!" She said as she took one look at Robin. She covered her mouth.
"Hey," Robin said, forcing his words out, "I'm not that bad looking!"
"He's…," Rose looked at the Doctor, "…he's…"
"Yes," the Doctor said slightly detached, he knew that if he were to let the reality of the situation set in, he would be looking for a place to spill his lunch, "he's got a wound that goes all the way through," he looked at Buffy, "what on Earth happened. I mean, I know all hell broke loose in the literal sense, but you guys must have put out one heck of a fight."
"It was a kill or be killed battle with an army of pure vampires,"
"Vampires?" Rose let out a laugh.
"Rose, after all you've seen, why is your initial reaction to laugh something off?" The Doctor inquired.
"I dunno, maybe it's because human thinking has relegated such things to myth, urban legends, and stuff of cheesy movies, which guys usually sit back and make fun of," she smiled, something she and Mickey used to do during a typical 60's horror movie marathon, but her smile quickly turned back to a look of concern, as her mind came back to the present. "Well, I think we'd better get this guy out of here and into the TARDIS,"
"Yes," the Doctor agreed, his eyes settled on Rona, the afro-American girl, "as well as her, and…" his eyes settled on Buffy.
"I'll be OK; I have that regeneration magic working overtime on me."
"Regeneration?" Rose asked as she leaned into the Doctor. "She can regenerate like you?"
"I don't know," the Doctor gave Buffy a close look over; he touched his hand to her.
"Hey, watch it with the touchy feely," Buffy was tempted to swat his hand away.
"It's OK,"
Buffy shrugged as she noticed his hand was on her belly, and not her breasts, "besides, they're further up,"
The Doctor rolled his eyes as he removed his hand, why were humans so preoccupied by sex especially when somebody seems to approach a sensitive area, was a mystery, "She has only one heart."
"Yeah," Buffy said, "I have one heart, I donated my extra one to science," she realized that the Doctor wasn't laughing, "you're being serious, aren't you?"
"Yes," the Doctor said,
Buffy looked at the Doctor, "who has two hearts? Raise your hand."
The Doctor did and then turned back to Rose, "while she has a heightened ability to regenerate, it's not like me where she can take on a new form. However, all life everywhere has the ability to regenerate to a certain point. When you scrape your knee for example, with proper care, the skin will grow back, which is a form of regeneration, and I think for her and the others who are like her, they have an extremely heightened version of that."
"Yeah, well that's well and good for me and B here," Faith said, "but could we please get my boyfriend to a hospital? Because if we don't soon, I'm going to get really pissed. And unlike Buffy, I don't get cute when I get pissed, if you know what I mean."
"Yes," the Doctor said, as he turned to Robin, "can you walk under your own power?"
"No," Robin replied, "I can't even move very much,"
"Ok," the Doctor took Robin in his arms, "let's go,"
"May I be of assistance?" Giles asked.
"Yes, actually, I think it would be best to use our arms to create a sort of a chair for him to sit in,"
"Right," the two worked together too gradually work Robin out of the driver's seat of the bus and outside, "you're not his son, are you? You're actually him?"
"In a different form, yes."
"But how, how can you regenerate in that manner?"
"It's a secret that is known to my people, and I'm afraid that when I die…I mean really die, that secret will die out with me."
"Why is that?"
"I'm the last of my people, a war between my people and a race of pure evil fought a battle to the death, in order to prevent this evil race from taking over the universe, I had to destroy my home world."
"Much like what we had to do with Sunnydale,"
"Yes,"
"Was it worth it? Sacrificing your people to destroy this evil race?"
"Yes," the Doctor replied, "actually the way I did it was quite brilliant, I utilized a piece of technology from my people's future to destroy the race in the past. It was a device that could take on any form I wanted it to, human, machine or whatever, it managed to get to the core of the planet and hyper accelerate the core, so that when the last ship from the alien armada reached orbit around the planet, it exploded. Only the TARDIS, the device and I survived. But the device got lost somewhere in the vortex of time and space."
"Are you looking for that device, or…?"
"I'm not looking for it, and if somebody were to come across it, they wouldn't even recognize it for what it was, and I'm sure even I wouldn't recognize it even if I were to accidentally stumble over it right this second."
At that moment, Dawn was helping Rona into the TARDIS and she bumped into the Doctor, causing him to stumble, but only slightly. "Oh, sorry."
"It's OK, accidents do happen," the Doctor smiled, as he and Giles paused long enough to let her take Rona into the TARDIS.