Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS - Part Two
Laura and Clara were still trying to make their way through the seemingly endless labyrinth of the TARDIS…at last they arrived at the console room, much to Clara's relief. "Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you" she praised, deciding to take back everything she had said about the ship, kissing the console in sheer relief…but then she realised that the door was missing. "No! The door, where's the door gone? No, you can't do this!" she protested. What did the TARDIS have against her?
"It's alright, Clara" her friend hastened to reassure her, "The door's missing because this isn't the real console room, it's just an echo of it".
"What does that mean?"
"Err…that it's an echo of the console room" said Laura, as if it should be obvious. Clara was too stressed out to really listen; she hurried out of the room and down the corridor, trying to find another route to the real console room. She didn't even realise that Laura wasn't following her…not until she rounded a corner and found herself in the console room again, where Laura was waiting. Before Laura could explain, Clara ran back down the corridor and into the first echo console room.
"Oh, why are you doing this?" she demanded, frustrated by the TARDIS. More importantly though, Laura was a bit frustrated with her –
"Clara!" she exclaimed, making said woman jump, "Just calm down. Deep breaths" Laura advised, demonstrating. Clara sighed and tried to calm down; stressing out would get them nowhere, she realised. "Clara, the TARDIS is trying to protect us; she's making it so those creatures can't get to us, so long as we don't open any doors".
"There aren't any doors to open".
"Well, let's keep it that way, shall we?" suggested Laura. "Now, we just have to wait until something falls off the console room. Trust me, it'll be a sign that the Doctor and Charlotte are nearby".
/
Little did Laura know, the Doctor and Charlotte (as well as Gregor and Tricky) had already reached another, empty console room; Charlotte grinned at the sight, knowing it meant they were close to finding her best friend.
"We're back where we started" Tricky said in surprise, and a bit of dismay; at this rate they would never find the other two passengers. Damn Gregor for taking that circuit…
"No, it's an echo. The console room is the safest place on the ship. It can replicate itself any number of times. It's trying to protect us" the Doctor explained, noting the lack of a door; and he'd be willing to bet that all the corridors led to the same place.
Charlotte tugged on his sleeve and murmured, "Clara – and Laura too, hopefully – are in a different echo room. Knock a piece off the console and see if it disappears" she suggested. The Doctor dragged a hand over the busted controls and knocked loose a piece of metal; it fell off the console and vanished before their eyes.
"Where did, where did that go?" asked Tricky.
"There's more than one echo room. Hey, look, look" the Doctor said excitedly, when the wreckage on the console was disturbed without any of them touching it, "The TARDIS has got them safe – both of them, hopefully".
"Why can't we see them?"
"It's like a light switch. Two positions, flickering at super-infinite speeds. We're only together for a brief second. Shh" the Doctor pressed a finger to his lips. They fell silent and listened…and heard someone humming a lilting, happy tune. Charlotte smiled, recognising it, and hummed along.
"That's Laura; that's definitely Laura. They're both okay!" she told the Doctor; they grinned and high fived each other. The Doctor turned to the console, saying "If I can just isolate their position, I can nudge the alternation, reach in and grab them".
Gregor stepped forward, ignoring Charlotte and Tricky's suspicious frowns. "You're coming with me" he told the Doctor, who wasn't really listening, "I need you to get me out of here".
Rather than respond, the Doctor simply plucked Gregor's computer out of his hand and sonicked it. "Scanning for female humans" the device announced, "Scanning for female humans…unidentified humans".
"It doesn't know Lancashire" the Doctor remarked.
"What?"
"It doesn't know sass – or eagerness, for that matter…yes! It's found Clara and Laura. It's found them, they're right there" he smiled, flicking a switch on the console. The two missing companions appeared, partially at least, their outlines blurred. The Doctor reached out and grabbed their shoulders, pulling them through, or across, or something.
Charlotte hugged Laura, and the Doctor hastily apologised. "It's all right. Listen, I'm so, so sorry. Sorry. Please, please forgive me" he pleaded, holding his arms out to Clara so she could hug him…she slapped his arm instead. "Ow! Okay, so we're not doing hugging. I get that now".
"What do you keep in here?" Clara demanded, "Why have you got zombie creatures? Good guys do not have zombie creatures. Rule one basic storytelling".
"Not in front of the guests" he protested, gesturing to Gregor and Tricky.
"Who are they?"
"Acquaintances – well, people who aren't trying to kill us, so I don't need punching again".
"Alright, alright" Gregor interrupted the conversation, "Look, a deal's a deal. You got the girls back. Now cancel the self-destruct" he insisted.
Clara stared at the Doctor in disbelief – he'd put a self-destruct on? – But the Doctor was smiling. "Ah, ah, you know, I've got to tell you, I won't be needing you in my quiz team" he told a very confused Gregor.
"What?"
"There is no self-destruct" the Doctor told him, playfully 'punching' his chest. "Hey? Hey? Hey? Had you going though, boys, didn't I? I just wiggled a few buttons. Yeah, the old wiggly button trick, and the face. You've got to do the face. 'Save her or we all die'" he said with a very serious expression, "I thought I rushed it a bit, but"-
"So you're telling us we're safe?" asked Tricky, just wanting to be clear on everything.
"Yeah, about that" Charlotte said awkwardly, "We're safe apart from the monsters and the TARDIS re-configurating everything because Gregor still hasn't given up the circuit he stole…and err, Doctor, I know you were kidding when you said the engine was going to blow up, but you might want to double check there isn't anything wrong with it…"
So the Doctor switched off the countdown, and the message that appeared on screen was 'Eye of Harmony. Engine Status: Overload'.
"Ah. That's not good. Okay, don't panic. Or maybe panic" he rambled. Why didn't Charlotte mention this sooner? he wondered, only to wince when he realised she probably thought I wouldn't listen to her.
Clara cleared her throat and inquired, "Something you want to share with the rest of us?"
"It appears the engine is damaged. We're in trouble, Clara, proper trouble. It needs fixing or we're toast" he said, before dashing down the steps to the lower level, Clara and the others in close pursuit.
"So now would be a good time to use that big friendly button, right?"
"Yes. Sorry, I should have had one built in".
"Where are we going?" asked Tricky.
"Detour" he replied, sonicking open a large hexagonal panel, "The centre of the TARDIS".
/
They climbed down a ladder into green lit corridors (or perhaps they were really large service ducts) deep in the TARDIS. The Doctor led the way, scanning for something with his sonic…a dark, growling shape darted across the corridor in front of them, and they froze. "Shh" hissed Clara, "Something's in here".
"Those things, they've followed us" Tricky realised.
"What are they?" Clara asked the Doctor, Laura and Charlotte, "What are you guys not telling me?"
"Trust me" the Doctor answered for all of them, "Some things you just don't want to know".
Gregor spun round when something, another creature, shifted behind him. "They're on the move again" he said, pushing past the others and running down the corridor. The Doctor decided that discretion was the better part of valour and cried, "Run, move, move!"
They ran. Clara didn't give much thought to where she was going, and ran down the wrong corridor. Laura hurried after her, not wanting her to get lost. Charlotte and the Doctor were almost at the end of the other corridor when they realised they'd lost Clara and Laura, again, and went back to find them.
"Clara, wait, you're going the wrong way" said Laura, when she'd caught up to her friend. Clara looked sheepish, and began to follow Laura back out, but then she heard something strange…her own voice, but not coming out of her mouth. She saw herself walk past, saying "I know what I said. I was the one who said it"
Then the Doctor saying, "You said it was looking at you funny".
"Laura…"
Clara turned to see Laura looking at herself, again, but it wasn't her. "Now you're creeping me out" said other Clara, before suddenly looking distressed, "Please tell me there is a button you can press to fix this?"
"What the…?"
"They're just echoes, Clara" said Laura at last, "They're not real".
"Echoes?" Clara repeated inquisitively, but before Laura could try to explain, Charlotte and the Doctor hurried in. They were obviously real, judging by the way Charlotte hugged Laura and then swiped her on the arm. "Quit wandering off!"
"Sorry".
"Doctor, what's going on?" Clara demanded, gesturing at…well, herself. She saw a flash of worry in his eyes before he hid it and explained, "There's a rupture in time somewhere on board the ship. A small tear in the fabric of the continuum. It must have happened when the TARDIS was pulled in by the salvage vessel. The TARDIS is leaking".
"Leaking what?" Clara asked as the Doctor led them back down the corridors.
"The past" he replied, "Everything we've done, everything we've said; recent history. It's not real. It's a memory" he explained. They turned a corner, and came face to face with one of the charred, red eyed creatures. It was quite thin, and Charlotte couldn't help but notice it's eyes were lined up exactly with hers….she shuddered.
"What about this one?" Clara stage whispered.
"If you're giving me the option, I'd say this one's real" the Doctor admitted. They ran for it, and the creature gave chase. I'm trying to kill myself, wonderful Charlotte thought bitterly, looking over her shoulder at the creature. It was faster than they thought.
"She's gaining on us!"
"She?" asked Clara, wondering how they knew the gender.
"Don't ask!"
The Doctor ushered them all behind a wall and pressed a finger to his lips, warning them to be very, very quiet. They all held their breaths, waiting and hoping that the creature would lose track of them.
"Aww, d'you wanna be alone with her?" said an echo of Charlotte, walking past their hiding space.
"You're like one of those guys who can't go out with a girl unless his mother approves" said echo-Clara.
"It's important to me you get along. I could leave you two alone together" – and there was echo-Doctor. The creature followed their echoes instead, much to their relief. It was short lived, however, as they began to hear an ominous clanking, banging sound over the distant toll of the Cloister Bell.
"What's that noise?" Clara asked with trepidation. Charlotte and Laura looked at each other nervously; they hadn't been looking forward to this part. They hadn't been looking forward to any of it. Damnit, why hadn't they just broken the first rule just this once?
"We're right under the primary fuel cells".
"So? So, so what?"
"So, so the fuel's spilled out, so the rods will be exposed. Means they'll cool…"
"And start to warp" Clara realised.
"And start to warp" the Doctor agreed, "Maybe even…"
"Don't say it!" said Laura.
"Maybe even break apart" he said it anyway, and Laura yelped in alarm as a thick metal rod suddenly slammed across the corridor, right in front of them.
"Run?" Clara suggested breathlessly.
"I'm liking how you're thinking" the Doctor nodded, and they hurried down the corridor, narrowly missing the metal poles. The thought of being skewered on one of them made the humans feel sick with fear…all their blood ran cold when they heard a scream from up ahead.
They caught up with Gregor and Tricky, the latter of which was pinned to the wall by a rod through his shoulder. "Cut it off. Just cut my arm off" he was urging Gregor.
"No!"
"It's the quickest way to release me. No fear, no hate, no pain. I can get a new one. Disposable parts. Just do it. It won't hurt me".
"Tricky, you just don't understand" Gregor protested.
"I'm an android, cut me!"
"No, you're not!" Charlotte huffed in exasperation, "If you were you wouldn't be in pain, would you? And you obviously are!"
Tricky stared at her and then at Gregor in confusion. "But I shouldn't….I've always been an android!" he protested. Gregor looked away in shame, and Tricky cried out "What's wrong with you? Why won't you cut me?"
"Tell him" the Doctor ordered Gregor, who refused to meet his gaze.
"Tell me what?" Tricky asked in bewilderment. Gregor wouldn't look at him either.
"You can't, can you?" the Doctor glared, "You're a coward. You won't save him, but you're scared to tell him why".
"What's he going on about?"
"Oh for goodness sake, Tricky, think about it" Charlotte huffed, "An android wouldn't have a 'flesh coating', it wouldn't need a blast suit, or get scared of monsters. You are not an android" she told him. He just stared at her, unbelieving, until the Doctor scanned him and confirmed, "Two bionic eyes and a synthetic voice box. But you, my friend, are human, flesh and blood".
Before Tricky could wrap his mind around this, Gregor bit out, "It was a joke".
"What?"
For the first time he could remember, Gregor actually looked ashamed. "It was just a stupid joke. We did it to relieve the boredom" he explained.
"Well, it was very funny" the Doctor snapped sarcastically, before telling Tricky, "They lied to you. Changed your identity just to provide some in-flight entertainment".
"I'm sorry" said Gregor, and it sounded as if he really meant it, "You're human, Tricky".
"Cut the metal" the Doctor prompted, "Cut the metal, go!"
Gregor hefted up the laser splitter and sawed through the fuel rod. They managed to free Tricky, sealing his wound with a special spray that they carried for emergencies. From there it was only a short run to their destination. "Where are we?" asked Gregor, as the Doctor ran up to a bulkhead door with a round window in it.
"Power source" the Doctor explained, "Right, you lot, wait here. I'll check it's safe. We can only survive for a minute or two in there" he warned.
"Err, what happens if we stay longer?" asked Clara, not sure if she wanted to know the answer.
"Our cells will liquefy and our skin will start to burn" the Doctor informed her. Okay, she definitely hadn't needed to know that.
"I always feel so good after we've spoken" she remarked sarcastically.
"Marvellous" the Doctor smiled, "Keep this door shut" he instructed.
"That will not be a problem" Clara agreed. The Doctor grinned at her, before ducking through it. Clara and Charlotte shut it behind him, wincing at the blast of heat they felt emanating from the chamber beyond.
Gregor had his scanner out again; the Doctor had used it to find his friends, but it couldn't get a clear reading before. He scanned the three young women, first Clara, then Laura and Charlotte. "Female, Lancashire, sass…female, Lancashire, optimism…female, Yorkshire, frustration".
"Hey!" Charlotte said indignantly…even if it was technically true, she only got frustrated when she was stressed out, or mad at herself - like now, for instance. Calm down, it's fine, everything's fine… she told herself. It didn't really help. I really hate this episode she grumbled.
He shrugged as if to say, 'Its words, not mine', and explained, "Intelligent sensor".
"Ever pointed that thing at yourself, Gregor?" Tricky asked bitterly, "What would it see? What sort of person does this to another human? Made them believe they're made of metal. Who am I?"
In reply, Gregor walked over and tore a patch off of Tricky's suit, revealing the badge 'Van Baalen Bros' underneath. "My mouthy little kid brother" he revealed.
Tricky frowned. "Why…why don't I remember?"
"It was a salvage accident. There was a big explosion. You lost your sight, voice and your memory".
"And you, you thought of a way you could have some fun with me? I just wanted a brother beside me!"
"You were always the smart one, Tricky" Gregor admitted, "He wanted you to take over. He made you captain".
"He?"
"Dad" Gregor elucidated.
Tricky looked distressed. "I don't remember him…" he realised; then he glared at Gregor. "You did this to me, just to be captain of a heap of junk!" he growled, suddenly lunging at Gregor. The two men struggled, but suddenly the Doctor was between them, forcing them apart.
"Stop! Tricky, listen to me" he demanded, "Ask yourself why he couldn't cut you up. He has just one tiny scrap of decency left in him, and you helped him find that, okay?" he asked. Tricky nodded slowly and pulled back. The Doctor looked at Gregor and ordered, "Now you, don't ever forget this".
They gathered at the door, braced themselves, and then the Doctor and Gregor hauled the door open. "Okay, move, move, move" the Doctor urged, and they hurried out onto the catwalk. A wave of heat washed over to them, making it hard to breath, and what looked like an actual sun hung suspended above them, just off to the side. The Doctor rattled off a hasty explanation. "The Eye of Harmony" he shouted over the roar of the star, "Exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole. Time Lord engineering. You rip the star from its orbit; suspend it in a permanent state of decay. This way, quickly!"
There was another creature behind the door ahead, and the female one from before had caught up to them, cutting off their retreat. "There's no way out, we're trapped!" cried Gregor.
Clara rounded on the Doctor and demanded, "You're going to tell me right now. If we're going to die here, you're going to tell me what they are".
"I can't" he stressed. She turned to Laura and Charlotte instead, but they just looked at her apologetically and shook their heads. "It's hard to explain" said Charlotte.
"Just tell me" Clara insisted, "What's the use in secrets now?"
"Secrets protect us" the Doctor told her firmly, "Secrets make us safe".
"We're not safe!"
"Sensor detects animal DNA" announced Gregor's hand-computer; he was scanning the thin burnt humanoid, trying to discover more about it and its weaknesses. "Human core element. Calculating data. Calculating data".
Both Charlotte and the Doctor's eyes widened in alarm; the latter stumbled forwards, shouting "No, no, turn it off!"
"Yorkshire...frustration…Identifiable substance, Charlotte" the computer intoned, in a far too calm and pleasant voice. Charlotte closed her eyes, looking pained…she'd suspected but, to hear it said aloud…she opened her eyes to find the others staring at her in horror, or in the Doctor's case, with guilt. "I'm so sorry" he told her helplessly. She wanted to yell at him, tell him sorry wasn't good enough, but she couldn't make her mouth work.
"That's you…" Clara breathed out, "You…we burn in here, don't we?"
"It isn't just the past leaking out through the time rift. It's the future" the Doctor explained gravely, "It's all my fault; I was supposed to keep you safe but it's happening again, you're going to die again". He spoke without thinking, forgetting that Clara was listening.
"What do you mean, again?" she asked with a bewildered frown, and he winced. Charlotte finally managed to speak again. "We need to get out of here, we need to get past that door!" she asserted, pointing at the second door, the one blocked by the creature with its hand fused to its forehead, "Tricky! You and Gregor are that other creature, it can't form if you aren't touching, come over here and help us get rid of this other one!"
Tricky hesitated, but Gregor snarled, "Just go", straining against the door with all his might. Tricky hurried over, past the Doctor, Charlotte, Laura and Clara; the hand-fused zombie burst into the room and he whacked it with his backpack, hard. The zombie tumbled off the catwalk into the broiling depths below.
"Out, out!" the Doctor roared; Charlotte was way ahead of him, dodging past Tricky and out into the blessedly cool corridor beyond. She looked back to make sure the others were getting out; Laura, good, and Clara, the Doctor – then the conjoined creature broke in. Zombie her was nowhere to be seen, and Charlotte hoped that meant she had successfully interrupted the timeline.
Gregor was pushed aside and narrowly avoided falling off the catwalk. Tricky rushed back to help him, unwilling to leave his brother even despite the years of mistreatment, and knocked the creature off the catwalk. In the process he fell himself, dangling on the edge of oblivion. "Tricky!" Gregor cried, rushing to his rescue. He couldn't bring himself to leave his brother behind either, not this time.
"Don't touch, the timeline will reassert itself!" the Doctor shouted to them, too little too late. Gregor hauled Tricky back up, and before their horrified eyes, the two men suddenly transformed into the conjoined zombie. The Doctor quickly shut the door, grabbed his nearest companion's hand (Clara's) and ran for it. Laura and Charlotte wasted no time dashing after him, both of them glad that all the running was making them both much fitter.
"The engine room" said the Doctor as they approached a door, "The heart of the TARDIS".
They ran out onto what looked like a cliff, with a sheer drop going down into white oblivion. "We're outside" Clara said breathlessly, looking around in bewilderment.
"It just looks like outside, we're still in the TARDIS" Charlotte told her, "And yes, there's no way across" she added.
Clara blinked, having been about to point that very fact out. Foreknowledge, right; she shook her head and turned to the Doctor, asking "So what do we do? Time for a plan. Do you have a plan?"
"Well, no" he admitted with a wince, "No plan. Sorry".
"If you don't have a plan, we're dead!" Clara exclaimed in dismay. They'd been having such a nice day, and suddenly everything had been thrown upside down by this one mistake…it wasn't fair.
"Yes, we are" the Doctor agreed grimly, his eyes boring into hers, "So just tell me".
"Tell you what?" she asked, bewildered. He didn't notice.
"Well, there's no point now. We're about to die. Just tell me who you are" he demanded. Sure, Charlotte and Laura could probably tell him, but he didn't want them to. It was no fun if you had to have the mystery explained to you.
Clara stared at him in consternation. "You know who I am" she protested, looking over at Charlotte and Laura, "You all do".
"I don't" the Doctor declared, getting agitated, "I look at you every single day and I don't understand a thing about you. Why do I keep running into you?" he demanded, wanting answers from Clara herself.
"Doctor, you invited me. You said"-
"Before that" the Doctor interrupted, "I met you in the Dalek Asylum. There was a girl in a shipwreck and she died saving my life, and she was you".
"She really wasn't" Clara shook her head, starting to back away, wondering if the Doctor had somehow lost his mind.
"Victorian London - There was a governess who was really a barmaid, and we fought the Great Intelligence together. She died and it was my fault, and she was you".
"You're scaring me" Clara protested, stumbling away from him.
He advanced on her, demanding to know, "What are you, eh? Are you a trick, a trap?"
"Stop it!" Laura cried out suddenly, pulling Clara over to her and away from the cliff ledge. The Doctor turned to them, opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Charlotte appeared and slapped him hard. "Snap out of it!" she yelled, glowering at him. The Doctor winced in pain, rubbing his sore cheek…he caught sight of Clara's expression and froze. She was scared, scared of him. He felt like a monster.
"You…you really don't know, do you" he realised, "You're just Clara…I'm so, so sorry" he apologised, looking at her beseechingly. Clara eyed him warily, but whatever madness had overcome him, the frighteningly manic look was gone. She let him approach and hug her tightly, like he didn't want to let her go.
Charlotte smiled, and then recalled that time was of the essence. She cleared her throat and said, "I hate to break up this sweet moment, but we ought to be jumping into the abyss".
"Of course!" the Doctor smiled, back to his old self, the guilt in his voice from before now tucked away, "Should have asked you two straightaway. This isn't real, it's a snarl" he said confidently.
"What?" Clara asked in bewilderment.
"What does a wounded animal do? It tries to scare everyone away. We're close to the engine. The TARDIS is snarling at us, trying to frighten us off. Charlotte's right, we need to jump" the Doctor announced, peering over the edge of the cliff.
Clara stared at him incredulously. "You're insane" she stated.
"I think we've established that" Charlotte snarked, before adding more reassuringly, "Clara, trust me. We'll fall through a portal into the engine room…which you might want to brace yourself for" she warned the Doctor.
"…How bad?"
"Bad enough" Charlotte sighed, slipping a hand into his and giving it a squeeze. She offered her other hand to Clara, who took it after a moment's hesitation, and held Laura's hand on the other side. The four of them backed up to take a running leap.
"Ready? Geronimo!" the Doctor cried out, and they ran, and leapt…
They fell down two, four, six feet, trying not to scream, before getting a rather jarring landing in a white void. Well, not quite a void…it was filled with the remains of the TARDIS engine, pieces of bent and twisted metal hanging suspended in the air. Charlotte caught the Doctor's eye and winced apologetically; she hadn't known how to tell him what had happened to his beloved ship.
"The heart of the TARDIS" he murmured sadly, as they made their way through the frozen wreckage. "The engine, it's already exploded. It must have been the collision with the salvage ship".
"We're not dead" Clara pointed out.
"She wrapped her hands around the force. Froze it" the Doctor said, talking more to himself than his companions.
"So, so it's safe?"
"Temporary fix" he explained, "Eventually this whole place will erupt. There's no way I can save her now" he said sadly, petting a forlorn piece of wreckage, "She's just always been there for me, and taken care of me, and now it's my turn and I don't know what to do. I think it just…" he trailed off, helplessly, and Clara felt an upwelling of pity. She walked over and held his hand, offering some comfort…but her hand was unusually hot, and he looked down at her palm in surprise…then delight.
Scorched onto her skin were the words, 'BIG FRIENDLY BUTTON', written backwards. "Oh, Clara, oh, you are beautiful. Beautiful fragile human skin", he pressed a kiss to her palm, "Like parchment. Thank you". The Doctor dropped her hand and pulled out his sonic, scanning his surroundings. "The rift in time; all the memories leaking out. I need to find the moment we crashed. I need to find… the music" he grinned, getting a lock on.
They followed the sonic to an echo or memory of the underside of the console room, able to hear music emerging from the glowing white crack in time and space that was running down the wall. "The time rift" the Doctor explained, "Recent past, possible future".
"What are you going to do?"
"Rewrite today, I hope" he replied, pulling the magno-grab cancellation device from his pocket. He etched the letters onto the device with his sonic, and held it up. "I've thrown this through the rift before. I need to make sure this time. Going to take it in there myself. There might be a certain amount of yelling" he warned them.
"It's going to hurt?" asked Clara, concerned.
"Things that end your life often do that" the Doctor said flippantly. He was really hoping this would work, though. He glanced at Charlotte; she gave a small nod, which he returned, and then he prepared to jump into the rift.
"Wait!" Clara exclaimed suddenly, "All those things you said. How we've met before, how I died…"
"Clara, don't worry" he soothed, "You'll forget. Time mends us. It can mend anything".
"What happens to us, though? Do we just stop existing?"
"No, of course not" the Doctor said hastily. Technically, these versions of them would cease existing, but thinking about it like that brought back…sad memories. "You'll be reset, like in a…a video game. None of this will have happened".
"We'll get the shields back up and dematerialise, pronto" Charlotte said confidently, stepping forward and giving the Doctor a hug. "Good luck" she told him. Clara and Laura gave him hugs and wished him luck as well.
"Won't need it" he winked at them, before taking a deep breath and forcing his way through the crack. It hurt like hell and he screamed out, pushing against a seemingly insurmountable force. He finally made it halfway through, into the past-console room, and shouted up at his past-self who had fallen against the railing. "Doctor, Doctor!" I'm from your future. We haven't got long to reset time" he explained, straining. He managed to throw the device out of the crack before vanishing.
It clattered onto the decking and Clara spotted it, grabbing it just like Charlotte had said. "Clara, no, no!" the Doctor cried out, lunging for it, catching it. He could bear the heat and he turned it over in his hands, laughing when he saw the words on it. "Ah ha! Big friendly button!" he grinned, slamming his hand down on it. The magnetic hobble field vanished, and he wasted no time in raising the shields and getting them out of there. Time warped, shifted…and they were remade.
/
Clara wandered into the console room, rubbing at her damp hair. They'd come back from a trip to see Dynamo, and almost gotten caught in a magnetic field or something, but the Doctor had done something clever and fixed it. "I feel exhausted" she remarked, "I feel…"
"Like we've had two days crammed into the space of one" the Doctor suggested. Unlike his companions, he could remember the now non-existent timeline. He shuddered to think what had nearly become of them all.
She gave him an odd look and asked, "Why would you say that?"
"I don't know. I say stuff. Ignore me" he said dismissively, before asking, "Do you feel safe?" He needed to know, that she wasn't scared by him, that she trusted him.
"Of course" she replied.
"Give me a number out of ten. Ten being whoo-hoo, one being argh!"
"You're being weird".
"I need to know if you feel safe. I need to know you're not afraid" the Doctor explained, skirting around spoiler territory. He was a pro by now.
"Of?" she raised an eyebrow.
Me he thought, but instead replied, "The future. Running away with a spaceman in a box. Anything could happen to you" he pointed out.
"That's what I'm counting on" Clara smiled, "Push the button". She walked off to dry her hair properly. The Doctor turned back to the console, and noticed Charlotte coming down the steps of another corridor. She smiled and said, "Hey".
"Hey. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, fine, there's just something I don't get. We were getting dragged in by that hobble field and then future you came to toss us the big friendly button, but the first time he did that never happened after the second time was successful, so how could there have been a first attempt at all?"
The Doctor stared at her. "You shouldn't remember that" he said worriedly.
"Oh, I don't" Charlotte reassured him, "I know it happened because I remember seeing the episode, I just don't remember things from my point of view. It's weird" she grimaced a bit, before adding, "So, can you please explain this paradox to me? Preferably with as little techno-babble as possible".
"But that's what makes the explanation fun!" he protested, before trying to explain, "Everything that would have happened today, the salvagers, the zombies, the TARDIS exploding; that was all part of a collapsed timeline. It is possible to experience different events on different timelines, and lose your memories of one or the other".
"But you haven't forgotten" she noted.
"No, and…I owe you an apology. You tried to warn me about the salvagers, and I didn't listen to you. I'm sorry, Charlotte.
She sighed and said, "Well, it never happened, but I accept your apology. So err…how mad did I get?"
"You snubbed me for a while and swore at Gregor".
"Really? Did I kick him in the"-
"Oi!"
Charlotte giggled, and gave him a hug. "Do you miss talking to the TARDIS?" she asked quietly, her head resting against his shoulder.
The Doctor was taken off guard a bit. He swallowed and replied, "…Sometimes. Why?"
"Cos I was thinking, she's got telepathic circuits, and you can get speech-to-text converters…why not a thought-to-speech or thought-to-text converter?" she suggested hopefully, pulling back to look at him. He gave her a small smile, and she was forcibly reminded that he was far older, far cleverer and far wiser than she.
"It's a nice idea" he murmured, "but the TARDIS doesn't think like you and I do, and even if I could sync up a converter to turn her thoughts into an understandable form, it would still come out sounding like gibberish…but thank you for trying to help" he smiled, giving her a kiss on the forehead. Charlotte smiled shyly at him – then quickly covered her mouth as she yawned.
"You've had a long day. Go on, go to bed" the Doctor prompted gently.
"Okay…night, Doctor".
"Goodnight, Charlotte".