The next day found them still on the same planet, wandering an open air market. Idris was delighted, and she darted from stall to stall. The place was alive with color and sound.
For all her "seeing" all sorts of things in time, she didn't realize that she was being watched carefully. When the watcher saw the Doctor present her with a colorful scarf by wrapping it about her shoulders, his eyes narrowed. It looked like the Doctor had another Companion... One who was clearly not human, though what she was was a mystery. The Doctor seemed to favor humans, so for him to choose someone else to travel with was noteworthy.
"Come along, my love," the Doctor said to Idris, "Let's see what's down this way." The Timelord and his companion made their way further into the marketplace, leaving the watcher behind.
If the Doctor was here, that meant that his TARDIS was here, which meant that he could find a way off this rock! With that in mind, he started to follow them. Eventually, he was sure that they would return to the TARDIS. And hopefully, they wouldn't take off right away.
"This is much more fun than just hearing about it all afterwards." Idris told the Doctor after they had been wandering around for a few hours.
"Well, that is the idea," he grinned
She cuddled his arm. "Not that hearing your tales wasn't interesting..."
"No," he smiled, "But seeing it in person, that's much better."
She beamed at him. "I do believe you are right."
"I am sometimes," he teased
"Only occasionally." She teased back.
This conversation was very curious indeed, thought the watcher. It made no sense. The Doctor never just told his companions tales of his travels. They were always with him on the journey. Just who was she, that she was so familiar to the Timelord but had only just begun adventuring with him? He couldn't sense her mind the way he would have been able to had she been another Gallifreyan. As far as he knew, there were only the two of them left in the universe.
Trailing the Doctor and the woman quickly became rather dull. She was rather naive. And she found everything to be amazing. It was starting to grate on his nerves, so he decided to try another tactic. If it was his TARDIS, where would he park it? After a bit of searching, he found it. It was, of course, locked and that wasn't unusual. What was unusual was the fact it seemed utterly devoid of the 'life' peculiar a TARDIS. The man circled it slowly, looking it over carefully. There was something wrong with it, but he couldn't quite place the feeling.
It was dead. That's what it was. Completely powerless. That was useless to him. But if the TARDIS was dead, the Doctor certainly wouldn't be walking around as cheerfully as he was.
He sighed. He would rather have just stolen the TARDIS out from the Doctor's nose. He smirked slightly. He would have loved to have seen the look on the Doctor's face when he realized his TARDIS had been stolen. The other Timelord had always been so protective of the museum-age thing.
"So what's wrong with you?" he asked the box, which was, unsurprisingly, silent.
He heard something and looked up, then darted off to hide. The Doctor and his strange companion were returning.
"...believe you said that!" She was saying as they arrived at the door. "I mean, I know you did, and you've done before, and you probably will again, but still!" She laughed. "I thought his eyes would pop out of his head!"
He chuckled. "Most of the time they don't know what to make of me."
"Sometimes, my dear Thief, neither do I." She said affectionately.
"Makes it fun, doesn't it?" he grinned, "Life's too long to be boring," he said with a grin
She snorted. "That is all too true."
The Doctor opened the door to the TARDIS, giving his companion a smile, "After you, love."
Once the two of them were inside, the man who had been watching them sensed the TARDIS spring back to life. What was this odd new trick of the Doctor's? It wasn't fair, that he'd learned how to better disguise his TARDIS, and there he was without one of his own!
He was a Timelord, for goodness sake. He was meant to be a traveler. Not... a sit-around-on-some-planet-er. Somehow, some way, he would get his hands on the TARDIS, and then get off this miserable rock.
*~*~*~*~*
The next day, the Doctor took Idris out for breakfast in a local cafe. He insisted that she try several different things. "You have to experience everything, now that you're not in the box all the time," he told her.
She pulled a face at him. "I experience what I want to experience. I didn't steal you for you to inflict...that on me." She indicated the food. "It looks worse than my wiring did after that funny little captain attached himself to the roof when we were traveling."
He laughed, "Fair enough. Still, now that you have a physical body, I think you ought to take advantage of it to the fullest."
Two tables over, hiding behind a menu, their observer had been listening Very Intently. And he was a bit astonished at what he was hearing. That woman was the TARDIS? While it didn't seem possible, it did make a great deal of sense. It would certainly explain why the TARDIS seemed 'dead' until she was there.
He slipped away from them. It wasn't that difficult to find the Doctor, so as long as they did not up and leave, he'd be able to work on his own plan for a few hours. He had to separate the two of them.
Several hours later, the Doctor and Idris had found themselves at some sort of fair, where people were exhibiting things that they had made or grown.
"Look at the size of that!" Idris squealed, darting over to a flower that had a head nearly as large as she was tall.
"That's impressive," he said with a nod
She was entranced. "How beautiful..."
"Very," he agreed, "And it smells lovely too."
She leaned closer to smell it.
"Come on," he said, "Let's see what's over there!" He pointed to a large crowd of people. Idris cheerfully followed him.
As they got closer, the noise increased. Laughing. Talking. Music. Singing.
They heard music coming from a dark blue tent. Some people were just leaving it, commenting on how the art inside was amazing.
"This way!" Idris grabbed the Doctor's hand and dragged him to the dark blue tent. Inside, there were several glowing metal objects, and the soft music seemed to be coming from them. She managed to restrain herself from running over and grabbing them.
"Do you like that?" came a voice, from a man in a long flowing robe.
Idris looked over at him, and nodded. "It's beautiful." She said simply.
"You can touch it if you like," he said, "Gently of course."
Idris nodded and reached out, her fingertips lightly brushing one of the objects.
There was a soft hissing sound and the Doctor looked alarmed. "Wait!" he called out, "Don't!"
All that Idris really had time to think about was that there was a somewhat odd sort of smell. Then, everything went sort of fuzzy. She could faintly hear her Doctor yelling about something, but he sounded very far away. There was laughter too.
Then everything went dark.
The Doctor fought to keep his eyes open, holding his breath and fumbling in his pocket.
"It's no use Doctor," the man in the robes laughed, tossing back the hood and revealing his face,"But don't worry, I won't hurt her."
The Doctor try to drag the woman towards the door, but the other Timelord collapsed before he had gotten two steps.