Jeanne wandered around the corridors of the TARDIS for what seemed like a very long time in somewhat of a daze. She was surrounded by feelings of warmth and affection that had been missing in her life, which she had missed so much, that she just kept following the pulling sensations until she found herself in front of a pair of green doors with trees on them. "Come inside." Jeanne reached for the doors and pulled them open, and gasped in astonishment at what she saw beyond them before stepping through, and allowing them to close behind her.
Meanwhile, the Doctor's frustration was growing as he continued to search his ship for the intruder. There wasn't any sign of her, and the TARDIS was strangely quiet, not giving him any indication of which way to go. *Perhaps she was trying to locate the woman still?* No, she knows everything that goes on within her walls, that can't be it. Finally he reached a 4-way intersection and stopped and sat down in a sulk. "Alright old girl, which way do I go from here?" Silence. He felt nothing from his ship at all. Now he was beginning to get worried. He realized that he had left that memory stick in the console, what if it had some sort of defense mechanism and the TARDIS had been damaged? He bounded back to his feet and ran back towards the console room. He was surprised to find the doors closed. Now, he was sure he had left them open when he started searching. These doors don't normally open or close on their own! He tried to open them and found them stuck, then realized they weren't stuck, but locked? "Well, no problem, just reach for my handy dandy....." his voice trailed off as he remembered that his coat was hanging over the railing in the console room, and the sonic screwdriver was in one of the pockets. "Please unlock these doors for me, old girl?" The continued silence from the TARDIS was beginning to disturb him. Then he realized that it wasn't completely silent. Leaning an ear against the door, he could hear the faint sound of the ship in flight and realized they had taken off! *Great, now we're roaming around in the Vortex with no pilot, and I'll have to try to get her back to the right space and time when I do find her.* He took off back down the corridor towards his workshop. Surely he had enough pieces and parts to put together a detection unit of some kind. *If the TARDIS can't help me find her for whatever reason, I'll find her myself*. If it seemed to take a little longer than normal to reach the workshop, he put it down to worrying about his ship.
Jeanne looked around her in amazement. It was a garden, but unlike any garden she had ever seen. There were several tall trees with silver leaves that seemed to sing in the breeze. The sky was orange, ORANGE, and the flowers seemed to be of every size and shape and color imaginable, but none of them were recognizable to her. They were so alien.... Her thoughts finally seemed to wake her from the trance she had been in, and everything hit her at once. "I'm in an alien ship, having just been rescued from an alien probe by another alien, and I've been invited to talk with the alien's ship? I must be dreaming. I fell off the bridge and am drowning in the river and am having some crazy death experience or something." She began to walk through the garden until she found a gazebo sitting on a hill in the garden. She froze in shock, because while everything else in the garden was alien to her, that gazebo was not. That was her gazebo, the one in the park where she and Michael had married. She slowly continued walking towards it until she stood inside. She looked out over the garden from the hilltop and was amazed at it's beauty, but it was haunted by the memories seeing the gazebo brought out in her. She sat down on one of the benches inside and wrapped her arms around herself. *What is happening to me? Am I going mad?*
"No, of course you're not going mad. I brought in someplace familiar because you seemed upset by the unfamiliar. It was something attached to happy memories so I thought it would make you happy, but it has not. I don't understand." The feminine voice spoke to her.
Jeanne took a deep breath, "This gazebo does have many happy memories for me, because it is where my husband Michael and I were married six years ago. It was the happiest day of my life. Two years later, our daughter was born. Every year on our anniversary we came to the park and had a picnic in the gazebo to celebrate our special day. This year we were on our way to the park. Michael was bringing Michaela from pre-school, and I was coming from work. Michael's car was hit by a drunk driver, and they were both killed. If we hadn't had the tradition of coming to the gazebo every year, Michael wouldn't have been in his car at that intersection at that time, and they would still be with me. So the gazebo is also a reminder of very painful memories." Tears had started running down her face as she recalled this. "When did this happen?" "Two weeks ago." Jeanne barely whispered her response.
Jeanne took a deep breath to try and compose herself, she had cried so much the past two weeks. "Who or what are you?" "I am the TARDIS, I am the Doctor's ship, and I travel through time and space. TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimension In Space." Jeanne looked around, "So, the ship is intelligent?" "Yes, I am, and I can speak with you telepathically." Jeanne rubbed her arms, as goose bumps had formed on them. "I'm speaking telepathically with an alien spaceshift?" "Yes." "OK, so what is your name?" There was a long silence before a reply came, "I am the TARDIS, that's the only thing I've ever been called. I have a numeric designation to tell me apart from other TARDIS', when there were other TARDIS'." Jeanne frowned, "How long have you travelled with this Doctor person?" "Hundreds of years ago, we left our homeworld of Gallifrey to explore the universe. Now, all of that is gone and he and I are all that is left of Gallifrey. This garden is a holographic image of a garden on Gallifrey where the Doctor played as a child." "It's beautiful. A hologram, you say, like in Star Trek? Can you appear to me as a hologram then, so I have someone to talk to?" There was another long pause before a woman's voice came from behind Jeanne, "Yes, I can." Jeanne turned and saw a tall woman with long dark hair wearing a white robe approaching her, smiling. "I am the TARDIS, this image is of the Time Lady known as Romana, who once travelled with the Doctor. I was quite fond of her, and I don't think she would mind me borrowing her image to speak with you." The TARDIS entered the gazebo and sat across from Jeanne. Jeanne reached out a hand, and whispered, "Pleased to meet you..." The TARDIS reached out her hand, and they shook hands. Both felt an almost electric charge when their hands met. Jeanne pulled back and rubbed at her hand. "You say there used to be many TARDIS', and you had a numeric designation. Why in the hundreds of years that he's travelled with you, has he never given you a name?" The TARDIS shook her head, "I don't know, he just calls me the TARDIS, or his ship, or old girl, or something like that. Maybe a name wasn't that important to him." Jeanne frowned, "Well, you deserve a name. How about, Ardi? I'm Jeanne the Human, he's The Doctor the Gallefreyan, and you're Ardi the TARDIS." The TARDIS smiled widely and whispered, "Ardi. My name is Ardi. Oh I like that very much. Jeanne, no one ever thought to give me a name before. Please, I would like you to stay with me and be my Companion."
Jeanne sat up straight, "Stay here? With him and you?" The TARDIS nodded her head, "The Doctor has taken many travelling companions over the years, and I've enjoyed them so much. But he has decided he doesn't want to travel with anyone ever again because he keeps losing them." She reached forward and took Jeanne's hands in her own, "You understand how much loss hurts. You don't have a life to go back to anymore - I know why you were on that bridge." Jeanne stiffened and tried to pull her hands away, but Ardi held on tightly. "You quit your job on Friday, drove out here to the middle of no where, left your purse and car keys in the car, and walked into the woods to that bridge for a reason. I know that reason." The tears began to run down Jeanne's face, but she couldn't deny the truth of what Ardi was saying. "The Doctor and I know what if feels like to lose everything that ever mattered to you, we've suffered through it on a massive scale. The Doctor thinks he's better off alone, but he's wrong, and I know I'm not better off alone. I want a friend who will stay with me, who won't go out running into trouble every time he steps outside my doors, where I can't protect him. I want a Companion of my own, and I want it to be you. Please, say you'll stay with me, say yes, Jeanne."
Jeanne stared at Ardi in shock. She hadn't told anyone of her plans for that weekend. She told her boss that she was moving away because there were too many memories here. She had been orphaned as a teenager, was an only child, and had no real close friends or family to support her after her family's death. She had decided she couldn't go on without them any longer, and had come up here to kill herself, just like Ardi said. She had reached the middle of the bridge and watched the river rushing underneath, and was just about to climb onto the railing when she heard the spider probe approaching. But if Ardi could be a friend, someone who understands what loss like this feels like, maybe...... deep down Jeanne didn't really want to die, she just didn't know how to live without her family; she hated feeling all alone in the universe. She wanted someone to take care of, and someone to take care of her, like before. That piece of her that wanted to live drew strength from the tight grip of Ardi's hands and Jeanne felt the ship's need for a Companion. *Oh to be needed by someone again.* Jeanne whispered, "Yes, I'll stay with you, Ardi." The two women reached for each other and embraced. The TARDIS sent waves of warmth and affection towards her new Companion, and Jeanne felt happier than she had been since the accident.