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Disclaimer: Trust me, if I owned either Inuyasha or Doctor Who, you would know.
—Stranded—
Aliens. Aliens existed. Out in the stars, on some distant planet, this man was born. If there was one, then certainly there were others—whole civilizations on who knew how many other planets, there were people.
And she had never known.
Except, now she did and how utterly bizarre was that?
Palming her face, Kagome rubbed at her eyes. "I shouldn't be surprised but I am…" she mused to herself, her voice a bit faint and weak.
The Doctor snickered.
Rolling her eyes, Kagome stalked past the snickering Time Lord, which was still hard to grasp, and she paced around the console, taking in the coral layout. Her hands traced along the railing as she passed before she paused to peer down what looked to be an endless hall. "So, alien right?" she said, eyes squinting. "Which makes this your spaceship?"
Hearing footsteps behind her, Kagome looked up and over her shoulder to see the Doctor sidle up next to her. "You could say that," he replied vaguely as he leaned into the railing, reaching over to give the coral strut beside him a fond pat. "Much more than your average ship though. She's called the TARDIS."
Kagome paused. Time Lord, she repeated silently. Turning to him fully with widened eyes, she stared at him. "Time Lord," she said out loud, all of it clicking into place. "You travel in space and time?"
His wide grin was all the answer she needed—the wagging eyebrows were just a touch too smug for her tastes. "Quick and clever," he praised, and before she could ask he continued with a not so little touch of pride, "And before you ask, it stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space—the TARDIS."
Rightfully stunned, Kagome leaned into the railing, shaking her head. "So not what I expected to happen when I woke up today," she huffed under her breath.
And of course, he heard her. "Where did you wake up? Or rather, when?"
Rolling her eyes, Kagome shot him a look. "I already told you."
He rolled his own eyes right back at her and threw in a scoff for good measure. "And I already told you why that's wrong."
Kagome turned to him fully, amusement lighting up her features. "And how would you know?"
Eyes narrowing and flashing in a way that said 'challenge accepted,' he rounded on her. "Because that would mean you're a time traveler. You're saturated in Atron particles, which only mean that you travel through time frequently, but that doesn't make any sense!" Throwing his hands up in the air, he stalked away and started pacing. "You're from the early twenty-first century—the technology is thousands of years away from breaking through even the most primitive forms of time travel and you obviously have nothing on you that could do the trick."
"Maybe I have a ship," Kagome said with a small grin.
The Doctor whirled on her in a flash of brown and blue pinstripes, his brown eyes wide and eager—the idea obviously hadn't even occur to him. "Do you have a ship?"
Like a puppy, Kagome thought, grin widening. "Nah," she answered cheekily.
His shoulders dropped. "Then how?" he demanded in a tone that was close to whining.
Kagome laughed and pinned him with a dry look. "And why should I tell you? I don't know you," she reminded him, and added with a grin, "And I think I like seeing you squirm."
The Doctor gaped at her. "I'm giving you a lift back! That's why! It's only polite."
Kagome let out an amused scoff, still grinning. "Oh, because you're the picture of polite, Mr. Rude and Not Ginger," she teased, enjoying the chastised look that crossed his face. Shaking her head, she approached the console once again and leaned down to peer closely at the implements that it made it up. As she poked at a rubber mallet her eyebrows furrowed, wondering what in the world its purpose was. "And besides, you were taking me home anyway. Quite adamant about it, really."
The Doctor blinked as if he had forgotten that and he shook his head absently. "Ah, you're right," he said, his disposition noticeably sober. He pushed from the railing, crossing over towards her and the console before he started fiddling with the controls once again. Rolling a wheel a few times, he reached for a lever and looked at her. "You're sure, though? 16th century, Japan's Feudal Era? Once I drop you off, that's it, I'm gone. No refunds or take backs."
Kagome's grin faltered at the drastic mood change but she nodded nonetheless, solemn. "Yeah, I'm sure," she murmured. A spark of anger flared within her. "Besides, I need to have a talk with a certain ex-best friend of mine about sending me off for what he thinks is 'my own good,' anyway," she muttered, her last few words mocking.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows at that, but said nothing—likely not wanting to poke that bag of issues with a twenty foot stick. "Well, then, Allons-y," he said with mock-excitement, pulling the lever.
Kagome watched in rapt fascination as the green glow of the Time Rotor brightened as it plunged up and down, a raspy grating sound filling the room. The TARDIS rumbled, the floor shook under her feet, and Kagome caught the edge of the console when she stumbled. Looking over at the Doctor, she figured the rides were usually a little rough, judging by the faint smile on his face.
However, the piercing whistle that followed as well as the sputter of the Time Rotor and the flicker and dimming of its green glow was not normal.
"What? What?!"
As Kagome cringed, her hands flying to cover her ears out of instinct, the Doctor gritted through the pain in favor for frantically hovering around the console, pulling and twisting and jabbing in a flurry as he yelled in alarm and confusion. "No, no, no—don't do this to me, not now! What are you doing!"
"What's wrong? What's going on?" Kagome shouted over the whistling. "Are we crashing?!"
The Doctor's dark, wide eyes snapped up to her. "I don't know!" he exclaimed throwing his hands up before rushing towards a screen, his fingers flying over the keyboard as he typed. "Something's wrong, obviously, but why? She was working fine…" he trailed off, eyebrows furrowed. "Until she tried to travel… but that means…" He let out a groan as he typed some more before going back to the wheel, spinning it before pulling on a lever and plunging a rod in a steady motion. "Fine, fine, just give me a minute."
"Doctor?" Kagome yelled in concern.
Said alien grimaced. "You should probably hol—"
His warning came too late as the TARDIS lurched. Kagome tripped, tumbling to the ground, her shoulder slamming into the floor grating quite roughly. A pained cry tore from her lips and the room seemed to tilt; Kagome started rolling.
"Kagome!"
Blindly reaching out as she tumbled, Kagome felt a jolt of relief as she managed to snag a rung of the railing. She grasped at it frantically with her other hand and held on for dear life was swung about wildly in the air. Heart racing, lungs burning, and her right shoulder throbbing like hell, Kagome squinted through the pain and the shrill whistling to look for the Doctor.
Despite what was happening, a shock of amusement rushed through her to find him currently wrapped around the Time Rotor like a barnacle to a rock and staring at her worriedly. "Are you all right!?" he shouted at her.
Kagome let out a string of giggles tinged with just a touch of hysteria. "Just peachy," she replied after a moment, biting her lip to hold back any more giggling. "Y'know, just hanging around is all. And you? Having fun?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes in exasperation, but his lips were twitching. "You humans," he muttered fondly. "Laughing in the face of danger and chaos… It's not normal. Not quite sane, either, but where's the fun in that, eh?" He giggled to himself. "And who am I to judge?"
"What did you say?"
The Doctor grinned, peering around the rotor to see Kagome's face, flushed with exhilaration and all but grinning as well. "Oh, nothing!" he replied cheerfully loud enough for her to hear. "Just hang on tight and give it a mo'—the TARDIS will right herself soon enough!"
"Got it!" she replied. "I really hope you have some aspirin around here or something though, 'cause this sound is going to give me a major headache."
The Doctor winced in sympathy. "Yes, I do, sorry about that." The whistling tapered before Kagome could reply and the TARDIS lurched and righted itself. He winced when he heard a loud thud, the tell-tale sound of Kagome's body hitting the ground.
Gingerly sliding of the Time Rotor and leaping off, the Doctor rushed over to her side. He found Kagome lying on her back, arms stretched above her, fingers grazing the railing she had previously dangled from. Her eyes, a wide, slightly dazed blue that were fixed to the ceiling, flickered over to his hovering form. "Well, that was different."
"Are you hurt?" the Doctor asked seriously, his eyes scanning her. He dropped to his knees and reached out. "You didn't hit your head when you fell earlier, did you?"
Kagome felt fingers tangle themselves into her hair, pressing and feeling around her scalp. "No," she grunted, shaking her head before she let out a light groan; her ears were still ringing from the whistling earlier, and shaking her head only made it worse and had her stomach flipping with nausea. "I landed on my shoulder when I went down."
"Good—well, better," the Doctor corrected himself, pulling away. "No concussion, then. What of your shoulder?"
"Throbbing, but I've had worse," she mumbled and she held out her hands. "Help me up?"
Cool fingers wrapped around her wrists, her own finding his, and Kagome felt herself be pulled up. She stumbled as her feet tried to find balance and the Doctor wrapped an arm around her back for support before herding her towards to the jump seat.
Fingers slipped under her chin, tilting her face up, and she found the Doctor's eyes staring into hers. She accredited all the blame for her next words to her not being in her right mind because of the fall.
"I didn't notice before, but your eyes are sad—they make me sad too," she mumbled as she closed her own eyes, her face fixed in a grimace. "Really old too. Is that an alien thing?"
The Doctor froze. "What?" he whispered.
"They're pretty, don't get me wrong, but… You've seen a lot of bad things. I can tell." She let out another groan. "Ugh, my head," she moaned, rubbing at her ears as she leaned her forehead against his shoulder.
Her words shook the Doctor from his thoughts. "Right, just give it a moment and it'll fade in a bit. Sit back and close your eyes and relax while I try to fix the TARDIS."
"A'right," she murmured, raising her head, "Need you to give me back my shoulders though, just saying," she added, not bothering to opening her eyes.
A startled cough escaped the Doctor's mouth and he yanked his hands back. "Ah, right, sorry," he mumbled awkwardly. Turning on his heel, he strode toward the console.
"What happened anyway?"
"Ah, well," the Doctor hedged as he returned to the screen and began typing. "Something went wrong with the TARDIS when I initiated travel, so I reversed it and sent us back to where we left. She's, well…" he trailed off, scratching at the back of his head. "For the lack of better words, she's not feeling well?"
Kagome stilled and cracked an eye open to peer at him. "She's alive," she murmured more to herself than him, and after her eye roamed the walls of the TARDIS her gaze found his once again. "You called her a she, talk about her as if she was alive, which explains why I can sense… something…" She trailed off, choosing to ignore his intrigued look. "I guess it would make sense that she could get sick in her own way…"
A satisfied look at her understanding formed on the Doctor's face. "That's about right."
"So…" Kagome drew out in thought, "She what, needs a little rest?"
The Doctor nodded decisively. "Exactly. It's nothing serious, just the sniffles you could call it. She's probably had it long before I noticed, and this is just the worse of it. Give her a bit, two days, four top, and she'll be as good as new. Weeeell," he recanted, "After I do a bit of jiggery pokery with a couple of wires, and check on some fuses of course, but other than that," he said, trailing off and giving a shrug. "Either way, we'll be stuck in here for a bit, won't let us out as she's quarantined herself."
Kagome cracked her other eye open. "Two days?" she repeated blankly. "What are we going to do for two days?"
The Doctor waved her off her concerns, and she wasn't too reassured when he suppressed what she thought to be a smile at something she obviously didn't know. "I wouldn't worry about being bored," he told her in a placating tone as he strode to her side, grasping her elbow in a gesture for her to stand. "There's a lot more to the TARDIS than what meets the eye, but first things first, let's get you to the med bay to check out your shoulder."
Kagome blinked as she let herself be lead down a hall.
"You have a med bay in here?"
How did you like it? Hope you all enjoyed! Drop a review and let me know what you think! ^^
Till next week,
RainLily^^
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Diane- Thank you for letting me know! I fixed up those mistakes! ^^