Before I forget the italics in this chapter include a nightmare? Uh, I don't know if it'd be triggering for anyone, but like, I don't want to risk it. So scroll past the italics if that something that messes with you.

Thank You IHateFridays for reviewing.

Marion doesn't know where she is because she can't see anything but herself. She can see her arms and her chest just fine when she looks down. She's fully visible as if she is standing outside on a bright yet cloudy day. But everything around her is black as far as the eye can see.

Marion wonders if perhaps it's not that she can't see anything, but that there's nothing to see. Nothing but darkness in every direction around up and down.

It is utterly silent. She can't even hear herself breathe.

Seeing nothing better to do, she picks a direction and begins to walk. She walks and she walks. She thinks she walks pretty far, but it's very possible that she hasn't been moving at all and is simply pacing in place but she assumes that she must be getting somewhere because the longer she walks the more she seems to fade.

Whatever light is illuminating her is fading, but she isn't concerned by this. She can't see herself anymore when she looks down. She doesn't reach for herself. She doesn't know if she would like what she feels. She wonders if she is close to anything or anyone else. She had no real way of knowing the place she was in seemed to go on forever with nothing but black as far as she can see. But, she keeps walking.

She walks and she walks and she walks and then she is stopped suddenly and she crumples to the floor with a silent scream.

Her body is on fire. She can't see the flames but she can feel them. They burn.

She can't breathe.

Her body is on fire and she can't breathe. She screams but no noise comes from her throat. She wonders if it disappeared along with her body...or perhaps it was her sight.

She doesn't know for how long she burns, but she is pulled from the ground by her neck and the fire fades but that's a small mercy because now hands are holding her tightly by her throat and she can't breathe.

Hands squeeze tightly around her throat and air refuses to do the polite thing and enter her lungs. She can't tell if her vision is getting spotty. There's nothing to see. She grapples at the air around her neck trying to tug away the fingers strangling her. She can't see her limbs, but she knows that they are there and she is hoping that if she feels around, she can peel the hand away that's choking her and run.

But her hands pass by nothing but air.

She kicks out. She doesn't know how she hasn't passed out yet, but her head hurts and she's sure that her face is red...if she even has a face.

Marion can feel the blood rushing in her ears pump, pump, pump, and pump although she can't hear it, and then, seconds pass. The hands loosen from around her throat and she falls to whatever passes for ground in this place.

She takes a deep breath and stands up. And then something shoves her in the back.

She falls. She falls far past the point where the ground should have been and she falls and falls and falls.

She falls for too long and as she falls, she attempts to scream but can not. It's not because of the pain in her throat, because if that were the case she'd surely produce at least some kind of croaking noise. It's because there is no sound in her throat. Or perhaps she is screaming as loud as she can but she can't hear just like she can feel, but not hear the pounding in her ears as strong as if her heart was in her brain.

She doesn't know how long she has been falling for. It might've been minutes, it might've been hours. She doesn't think that it could possibly be days but she's no way of kno-.

Marion finally reaches the bottom of wherever she's falling and the back of her head slams into the ground.

Marion woke up and shoved the blankets covering her head away. Breathing heavily. And she could hear her breath.

The grey constellation patterned quilt which had seemed light, warm, and comfortable, and soothing when she had gone to sleep felt heavy, hot, and smothery.

She frantically kicked it off her bed. She sat up and brought her legs and a pillow to her chest.

She couldn't see. She couldn't see and that scared her.

As if hearing her thoughts, the lights in her room gradually increased in brightness until the room was lit with soft cool light.

"Thanks, Honey," she said into the pillow she was clutching in her arms.

It was just a nightmare. It was vivid and it was terrifying, and it had left her breathing twice as hard but getting only half as much oxygen as she needed, but it was just a nightmare.

She concentrated on slowing her breathing down.

Slow inhale….hold...slow exhale.

Slow inhale….hold...slow exhale.

Slow inhale….hold...slow exhale.

Marion looked around her room.

She could see her hands even if they were shaking, and her desk, and the wall, and the bookshelf, and the pillow in her arms.

She could feel her hair, and the sheet that her arms were resting on, and the shirt that she was wearing as it stuck to her back, and the pillow she had wrapped her arms around.

She could hear her own breathing and the sound of the bed slightly shaking from the way she was shaking her leg with anxiety. She leaned her head to the right and she could hear the faint humming of the TARDIS as well.

She couldn't smell much of anything other than that faint indescribable neutral smell that always surrounded the TARDIS and the only thing that she could taste was that stale mouth of a person who just had been sleeping for a while.

She took a deep breath in and turned over to her side with the intent to go back to sleep and forget that any of this had happened only, which offered a problem.

She couldn't see when her eyes were closed and her room was unnervingly quiet.

Marion quickly opened her eyes up again and got out of bed all together. "At the very least," Marion sighed and rolled out of bed, "My mouth feels stale enough that I'm pretty sure that I've got a decent amount of sleep at least,"

She tapped on the band on her arm resetting the sleep counter. She pulled the sheets back in place and the quilt as well.

She took yet another deep breath and sighed.

She took her sketchbook back out of her bag and tore out the drawing of the lab. She pinned it on the corkboard.

She placed her bag on the bed and went through her drawers looking for something comfortable to wear.

Whatever the hell kind of dream that had been was probably as good a reason as any to get out of bed and start the day and if she was about to get taken somewhere else in the timeline, she wanted to be wearing a bra at least.

Marion changed into a cardboard colored cowl neck sweater, a pair of those black pants that can probably pass for dress pants if paired with the right outfit but are more or less glorified sweats, and a pair of comfortable yet functional boots. She noticed the small leather id pouch with the psychic paper was resting on the top of her desk.

'Oh right,' she thought, 'I left that in my coat didn't it?'

"Thanks for leaving that out for me. Honey!" Marion said aloud.

The lights in her room dimmed and then brightened.

With that Marion walked out of her room.

Marion went back to the bathroom to brush the stale feeling out of her teeth and then continued to wander through the halls of the TARDIS.

She soon found herself in the TARDIS kitchen.

She hadn't meant to end up there, but it made sense. If the TARDIS could read her mind in any way, it'd probably take her to a kitchen after her nightmare.

Marion had got into the habit of making something in the kitchen when a nightmare struck. She'd done it since her-. She'd done it since she was a child. And it helped as an adult. The kitchen was a safe place to be alone after a bad dream. And you could make yourself something warm to eat to get your mind off it.

She wasn't alone. The Doctor was there as well. Marion didn't think she had jumped in her sleep but the figure of Two with his jacket hung over the back of his chair and drinking a mug of something, confirmed it.

The Doctor looked up when he saw her, "Oh, Marion! There you are," Marion didn't think there was something off with her face but the change in the Doctor's tone proved otherwise, "What's wrong? Where are you coming from? What happened? Have a seat."

"You were with me most of the day. I haven't warped or anything yet. Kind of weird that I haven't," she mused aloud, "I mean, normally, I'm yoinked away as soon as I wake up and change. This is a nice change. And what do you mean what happened,"

"Well my dear, if you don't mind me saying so, you uh, don't look so well. Your hands are shaking,"

"Ah," Marion sighed and looked down. Yup. Her hands were definitely shaking. Yikes, "Yeah don't worry about that. Just had a bit of a bad dream and don't want to go back to sleep for a bit," Marion said waving off his concern.

Marion didn't mention that a big part of her desire not to go back to sleep came from the fact that the idea of having her eyes closed and therefore being unable to see scared her.

"Speaking of sleeping, I assume Zoe and Jamie are doing that right now right? Shouldn't you be asleep also? You've all had a rather long day,"

If Marion was remembering correctly, the Dominators, The Mind Robber, and The Invasion basically happened back to back to back to back. She didn't THINK Wheel in Space could be added to that chain of events, but she wasn't positive.

The Doctor waved his hand, "Ah, don't worry about me. T-My people need far less sleep than yours do. I was working on fixing the TARDIS and I thought I might come in here for a drink," he held up his mug, "The water in the kettle should be still warm if you wanted to make yourself a cuppa as well,"

"Oh sure,"

It was a little bit awkward to just walk into a kitchen when someone was already inside of and just like, start baking bread or cookie dough or something. Having someone walk in because they smelled something good? That was one thing. But…

Yeah her baking plans were having to go out the window. That was fine.

Marion opened a cupboard and retrieved a ceramic mug nearly identical to the one the Doctor was drinking out of and a box of some tea with a picture of what Marion was certain was a fruit of some kind.

"Hey Doctor what's this?" she handed him the box and he looked it over.

"Ah, we got that tea a little bit before Victoria left. We ended up on a planet that had this lovely little bazaar with booths based on famous nations in the galactic federation. Victoria found one for England. They had all these teas that they claimed were Authentic Earth and the Associate bought samples of most of them,"

"And were they? Authentic I mean?"

"Well, not until the 34th century no. Not until an ambassador brought some cutting from another planet and the plants seemed quite willing to cross-pollinate with some of your planet's fruit-bearing plants and make something new altogether,"

"So it's safe for me to drink then?"

"Yes, yes of course. The Associate threw out all the poisonous ones,"

"Great,"

Marion hoped she tried which is which based on their ingredients instead of sipping them, and then making a note of how many times she died.

Marion put the teabag in her cup and filled the mug basically to the brim with hot water. She tapped on the table, waiting for the tea to fully brew.

They say in silence for a moment. Holding onto the warm cup was comforting, and the steady heat helped to calm her and most importantly keep her hands from shaking. She just needed for the Doctor to forget about how she looked when she came into the room and...

"Marion,"

'Oh God no,'

"Hm?"

"Do you want to tell me what your dream was?"

"Nope," Marion said without looking up from her mug. The tea was slowly dying the water a deep purple color and Marion thought that it was fascinating to look at.

"Marion are you sure,"

"Oh, positive," Marion said without looking up, "I really don't want to think about that dream right now. Tell you what, the next version of me you meet is guaranteed to be the Associate right?" Marion was quite literally making this future her's problem, "Ask her. It's just a little bit fresh right now and I'm really trying not to think about it. Oh! What if I tell you about what happened in the cathedral instead,"

"Oh, you mentioned that,"

"Yeah," Marion said. "First time I died,"

The Doctor winced. Which, Marion had to say, was a fair reaction. "No, I won't tell you about the dream I just had, but I WILL let you know about that time my head slammed into the marble and I got to feel that wondrous sensation of my blood seeping back into my skull"

Changing the subject to that was unlikely to convince the Doctor that she was okay.

"I mean, I didn't really die, you know," she corrected, "Got about as close to dead as a person can without dying I suppose. But I clearly didn't die since I'm," she gestured to herself.

"What happened?"

Marion took an experimental sip of her tea. It wasn't hot as the water had had plenty of time to cool. It tasted slightly sour, but in the citrusy way that meant all you needed was a little bit of something sweet.

"Honey's in the left side of the corner cupboard. It's on the bottom,"

"Thanks," she retrieved it and squeezed some into her tea, and began to stir.

"Right. The Cathedral. I won't tell you too much, because this is a spoiler but like, it's also several hundred years in your future so I doubt you'll remember." She took a sip of her tea. Much better, but still needed a bit more honey. "You didn't seem to remember when it happened so..so you, me, Person A, and Person A's sister were trying to track down this dude who was trying to…,"

Something occurred to Marion and she laughed.

"What's so funny? What was he trying to do?"

"Don't worry about it,"

The irony of Marion trying to stop a person from cheating death when she herself cheated death on the regular was not lost on her.

"Anyway, we were trying to stop him. You got this idea that loud noises at high frequency would weaken him enough for him to be like, manageable? So you ran to play a sick organ solo while we lured him up to the top of the belltower,"

The Doctor was staring intently at Marion, clearly listening carefully.

"So we got there, and he cornered us. And the room was like this,"

She drew a rough sketch of the room on a napkin. The outer platform, the hole in the center, and the guardrail that would in theory keep anyone from taking a tumble like she had.

"So we come in here," she pointed to it, "And he came after us. Also, he was a giant scorpion monster,"

"What?"

"Yeah, the man was turning into a giant scorpion monster. Human evolution is fascinating. Anyway, so uh...God I don't really remember everything," which Marion had to admit, was a little bit odd. "-but he went to knock Person A's sister- wait no, it was Person A! Anyway, he tried to knock 'er over the edge of the side and out the hole and to the ground and I shoved her out of the way, but I wasn't paying attention and got wammed in the back. And I got thrown off the side, hit the ground, and then passed out. When I woke up and I felt like, the feeling of something-blood I think. Re-entering my skull. I wasn't dead and I was lowkey panicking about it cuz I absolutely should've been,"

"You didn't know?"

"Didn't know what?"

"You didn't know that you were-"

"Nope. I really thought that I was going to die and then when I woke up, I thought I was a ghost or something and then you came over to me and you were like, chill about it? Like, you didn't make a big deal of it and you hardly reacted and you explained what was going on and how I was unkillable and that I was fine and that kind of…I don't know kept me from freaking out?"

Marion took a big sip of her tea. Perfect.

"What exactly did I do to calm you down?"

"It's like when a kid scrapes their knee. They're looking to you to know how to react. If you freak out, they freak out. But if you're calm then they know that it's nothing to worry about. So you didn't freak out, so I didn't freak out and have continued to not freak out and I totally would've panicked. I wasn't like this where I came from...at least I don't think that I was. I wasn't exactly a boring person, but like, life didn't exactly chuck bowling balls at my head you know? My life's never really been in danger" Marion paused. "Well, I mean, there was the time I nearly drowned in the pool but…,"

"You nearly drowned?"

"I was like 12 and a friend yanked me in the pool when I wasn't paying attention. That would've been fine, except I slammed my head on something when I went down. Still not sure what. But I slammed my head and passed out which is NOT something you want to do underwater. We can't all have respiratory bypasses. Luckily, I only got some water inhalation and a minor concussion. I ended up having to spend a week in the hospital though because some intern screwed up and mixed up my CAT scan with someone else with like, SEVERE brain bleeding,"

"Thank god we had pretty great health insurance," she added under her breath. "But other than that, I've lived a near-death experience free life,"

"Well," the Doctor said seriously, "I'm very glad that you're alive. I'm not quite sure what I'd do without you,"

Marion didn't really know how to respond to something like that. The man wasn't exactly a stranger, but it was still weird to hear someone she didn't know that well say something like that so seriously.

Of course, Marion was fairly sure that he'd be 100% fine if she didn't exist but she didn't know how to word that in a way that didn't either sound like she was fishing for compliments or should be put on some kind of safety watch.

"Who knows," she finally said, downing the rest of her tea. "You have to find someone else with a magic fake ID I suppose," She stood up and went back to the cupboards, partially so she wouldn't have to look the Doctor in the eye and partially so that she could get something to eat.

She remembered she'd seen a box of granola bars in one of the cupboards and she took one, peeled open the wrapper, and ate it. Marion had expected that she'd need something else along with it, but whatever it was practically filled her up.

'Must be some space thingy. Like, give them enough calories for a full meal in a single quick to eat a snack so they can get on with their day. Fascinating'

Marion grabbed a few more of those bars and put them in her bag in case she or anyone else needed some food but none was available. She pressed the button on her armband to let her know that she'd eaten something. Marion closed the cupboard door and moved to pull her hand away but it didn't move. She unwrapped her fingers from the handle, but something around her wrist kept her in place.

"Oh dear," Marion said.

"What is it?"

Marion made a show of pulling wrist with her other hand to no avail. "I think I'm about to head out. I'm glad we could take some time to talk!"

"I'm glad that we-"

The Doctor didn't finish before Marion felt a harsh yank on her arm and she was sent tumbling forward. She expected that she'd slam her head into the cupboard in the process but she was gone before she could.

That's small mercies. She wouldn't've put it past the Bitch Force to slam her head into a wall on its way out.

Marion was dropped off a couple of inches above the floor of the TARDIS and when the Bitch Force let her go, she stumbled for a bit and then froze.

There was something very, very, very, very wrong in the TARDIS.

Something was clearly missing in the TARDIS and it was something absolutely essential. It made Marion feel a little bit sick.

She placed her hand on the nearby wall.

"Honey!" she asked urgently, "Honey is something wrong? What...what's going on!"

Marion felt humming under her hand, but it was muffled and muted somehow. It was like the TARDIS was shouting, but from several apartments over. She could hear it sure, but it didn't sound right. It sounded muffled.

"Honey?" Marion asked in utter confusion. She pulled her hand away. And put it back. It still sounded muted.

"Honey? Where's the Doctor?"

It was harder to follow the TARDIS but she still managed it and she got to the console room. She didn't pay attention to it however because the door outside was partially open so she knew that the Doctor was outside.

She broke out into a run and pushed the door open.

"DOCTOR! I THINK SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THE TAR-oh. OH,"

Well, that explained it.

"Marion? What's wrong,"

The TARDIS had opened up into a large spacious room that was decorated like a fusion of a high school English classroom and a college science classroom. It was spacious with bookshelves against the wall next to a map and in the middle of the room, was a lab table. There were two people in the room other than herself. First, a young and rather attractive woman with blonde hair and a brown and pink striped sweater who somehow managed to rock a fanny-pack (wait, Brits called them bum bags and also, didn't like people using the word "fanny" in any context didn't they) without looking like a middle-aged dad, and second, the man who had spoke. He had set what he was working on down and turned to look at her. He had curly grey hair and a dark blue almost black velvet jacket over a dress shirt covered in ruffles.

"Well, what is it? What's going on?"

"The TARDIS feels really wrong…," she said, lowering her voice down as she spoke.

Marion felt kind of foolish. Of course, the Doctor knew there was something wrong with his TARDIS.

"Sorry," Marion rubbed the back of her neck. Marion wondered if the Bitch Force would be willing to do her a solid and yeet her away right this instant.

Ideally into a supernova.

'Hey, Doctor! I think something is wrong with your TARDIS! No fucking shit.'

"I'm...I'm sorry it kinda caught me off guard. The-normally I can kind of feel Honey but it's really muted...but I'm sure that's old news to you. I'm sorry. I uh, haven't met this version of you yet so I...sorry,"

"The Time Lords messed with the TARDIS," he explained, "They cut off my connection to her and that messed with yours as well. Luckily," he held up the thing that he'd been working on. It was shaped vaguely like a triangular pyramid. With valves coming from the center to the corners It was transparent, with tubes and wiring visible on the inside and with large round rubber bits around the edges. "I've finally done it!"

"Done what?" the blonde woman.

"I've made myself a completely new dematerialization circuit. One that'll bypass the Time Lords homing control. I hope."

"You don't seriously think you'll get that thing working again, do you?" Jo asked.

"Oh, no," the Doctor said, sounding both sarcastic and annoyed at the very suggestion, "No, I've been doing all this work for fun,"

"I mean it's just a sort of hobby isn't it?" Jo asked, "A kind of game?"

The Doctor got up and went to unlock the TARDIS, but saw that the door was already ajar.

"A game?"

"Well, what have you got in there anyway. A policeman?"

"Hey," Marion said, "I was just in there and I resent the implication that I am a cop," Marion pushed open the door the rest of the way, "Now why don't you check it out yourself!" Marion went to push open the door and then she paused, "Oh, by the way, nice to meet you Jo! I forgot to say that earlier,"

"Well, here she is!" Marion said waving her hand out towards the console room.

Now that she actually had the chance to get a look at it instead of barrelling past it and out the room so she could shove her foot into her mouth, the current TARDIS interior was quite interesting. For one thing, it looked much bigger than some other console rooms, which was likely in part because of how empty it was. Instead of the console being in the middle of the room it was pushed further back in a corner and that added to the emptiness.

The console itself was that mint green color that 1950's interior designers went absolutely wild for. The floor was made of some kind of grey linoleum adjacent material. The round porthole thingies in the TARDIS wall looked deep enough that you could maybe put a plank of wood on them to make a flat platform, and then put some books on it, or perhaps a couple of potted plants. Against one of the walls near the TARDIS entrance was a grey metal panel covered in flashing lights and buttons. And there was a large metal pillar covered in lights that Marion had absolutely zero idea of the purpose of.

"So, what do you think?" Marion asked.

"I don't believe it!" Jo said in shock, "It's bigger inside than out!"

The Doctor strolled into the TARDIS and walked back towards the console. "Yes. That's because the TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental,"

"What does that mean?"

"It means Jo," Marion replied, "It's bigger on the inside. I don't really get how it works, but Honey is pretty amazing,"

"Who's Honey?"

"'Honey' is the silly nickname Marion's invented for the TARDIS,"

"Oi!" Marion replied, "It's not 'silly', I can't just walk around all the time saying 'the TARDIS'. I don't go around calling you th-. I can't just walk around saying 'the TARDIS' all the time. Besides, she likes the name 'Honey'. Don't you Honey?"

Marion felt a faint and yet positive-sounding hum from somewhere under her feet and it was faint, but some of the lights on the TARDIS glowed ever so slightly brighter for a moment.

"See?"

"Yes, yes, of course. Now then," The Doctor pressed something on the TARDIS console and it rose. He put his new dematerialization circuit into it and then tapped the top. It went back down.

Marion caught movement in the corner of her eye and she turned to see the TARDIS doors close.

"Hey, Doctor?" Marion called.

The time column in the center of the console lit up and began to move up and down.

"That's impossible!" the Doctor exclaimed.

"The doors have closed,"

"Yup," Marion said, staring at the wall.

"What?"

"Doctor, let me out of here,"

"The doors aren't going to open. See?" The Doctor found the lever that opened and closed the TARDIS door and pulled at it.

The doors as expected didn't budge.

The Doctor looked at some flashing lights on his side of the console. "I think we're taking off!"

"Well, stop it!"

"He's trying," Marion said.

Marion leaned her hand on the console and. It was utterly unsettling to touch the TARDIS console and barely feel any presence at all. And then the presence she did feel suddenly changed rapidly and if the TARDIS's being severely muffled was bad, then this was much, much, much worse.

Imagine you are a child. You have a mom and a dad and they both love you very much. Your dad has to leave for work earlier than your mom, so she's the one who makes you breakfast before you walk up to the bus stop.

Every morning she heats up a cup of milk in a saucepan and stirs in chocolate syrup. She pours it in a thermos, tops it with whipped cream, and sends you on your way. It's nice to have a cup of hot chocolate to sip on while you wait at the bus stop.

Now imagine that one day, your dad has a day off work and he agrees to make you breakfast so your mom can have a break. You get to the bus stop, thermos in hand, and take a sip, only to realize that your dad is a godless heathen who makes hot chocolate using water for no good reason other than he thinks it tastes better.

But it doesn't. Something is clearly off and worse and bad.

The TARDIS felt a bit like that.

Marion yanked her hands away from the console with a flinch. She could still feel the wrongness in her feet where they touched the TARDIS floor through her boots, but when she wasn't directly touching the console it wasn't as bad.

The Doctor flicked some other switches frantically.

"Something's operating it by remote control!"

The TARDIS began to make the grinding noise it always made pre-takeoff. The Doctor looked down at the flashing lights and seemed to find some meaning in them that Marion did not.

"The Time Lords!" he said, sounding furious.

"All right, Doctor, Marion. The joke's over. Open the doors and let me out,"

"I can't, Jo. We've taken off,"

"And even if we could open the door, we're in the middle of the Time Vortex. You'd be safer opening the emergency door in an airplane while it's in the sky,"

"Where are we then," Jo asked, "And where are we going,"

"At the moment we're nowhere," the Doctor explained.

"Oh, don't be silly. We can't be nowhere,"

"We're outside the space-time continuum,"

"What?"

"We're in the space between places," Marion explained, "It's how a TARDIS works. She goes outside of everywhere and everywhen and then once she's away from everything, she comes back in at a different point,"

"What?"

The Doctor flipped a couple of switches on the console. A screen lowered and flickered to life.

The screen was dark blue with cyan-colored lines flashing and oscillating across the screen. Yellow-green and red lines spun wildly.

It kind of reminded Marion of the floor of the arcade section of an ice skating rink but in motion.

"Look," Doctor pointed.

"It looks pretty cool,"

"What's happening?" Jo asked, "Where are we going?"

"I've no idea. We'll just have to wait until we emerge,"

They watched the monitor. A small green dot appeared in the distance. It grew bigger and bigger as the flashing and moving lines slowly faded away as they exited the Time Vortex.

"The planet Uxarieus," the Doctor sounded relieved when he saw it, "So that's our destination,"

"Very impressive," Jo said with a nod, "but can we go back to Earth now please?"

"I don't know, Jo. I just don't know,"

"We can't," Marion stated clearly. They both turned to look at her. Jo especially had a look of alarm on her face. "Not right now I mean. The Doctor's not in control of the TARDIS. You felt it too right Doctor?" Marion asked, "Right before the rotor started going off, Honey started feeling...different. And she still does. Feel different I mean. The Time Lords brought us here because they want us to do something. And I don't think that they're going to let us leave until we've done that thing,"

The TARDIS finally landed and a TV screen near the door clicked on. The TARDIS was really committed to the whole 1950s aesthetic that the console room was covered in and that included the outside scanner.

It clicked on automatically.

"Is that supposed to be where we are?" Jo asked.

"That is where we are," the Doctor corrected.

"You see, the thing about alien planets is that most of them look like quarries,"

"All right then. If we've landed on another planet, why don't you open the doors?"

"Because for all that he knows, the air outside might be super-mega poisonous,"

The Doctor moved towards the TARDIS panel covered in dials and meters silently.

"Is it?" Jo asked. She looked towards the door, frightened.

"It is what Jo?"

"Is it poisonous?"

"No," the Doctor shook his head and looked up, "No, it's quite healthy. Similar to Earth before the invention of the motor car. Of course, you already knew that Marion,"

"Still good to check,"

"Well, I suppose so,"

"Look, are you going to open the doors or not?"

"I can but try," the Doctor flicked a switch on the same panel of the console, and the doors opened inward.

"Thank you!"

The air smelt dusty but still clean. It reminded Marion a bit of Tombstone actually. Jo walked outside the TARDIS in shock. And Marion remained just in the TARDIS looking out into the land. It truly looked just like earth except the sky was white. The sun was shining bright in the sky in a way that made sure Marion knew that the issue wasn't that it was cloudy. The sun looked off, somehow, but Marion couldn't possibly tell you how. She just knew that something was different.

There was a noise in the distance that made Marion think of a dying cyberman, but she was PRETTY sure that no cybermen were involved in this serial. Maybe that was just the sound the wind made as it rushed through the craggy rocks surrounding the place.

"Oh my!" Jo exclaimed.

"Pretty cool isn't it?" Marion said standing next to Jo and looking outside the TARDIS, "It's a lot nicer than my first alien world. It was literally just a giant desert. I spent the whole trip in a Sandminer full of...well nevermind. That's spoilers. You're pretty lucky!

"That's an alien world out there, Jo. Think of it,"

Jo turned away from the outside. She looked panicked as she looked from Marion to the Doctor. "I don't want to think of it. I want to go back to Earth!"

"Not an option at the moment I'm afraid," Marion said under her breath. The Doctor couldn't pilot the TARDIS at the moment due to whatever the Time Lords had done to the poor man's head and Marion couldn't pilot the TARDIS because...well, even if she knew how to do it, and didn't rely on the prompts the TARDIS gave her when she touched the console, flying it would require touching the console and getting THAT feeling again at full force.

And Marion was not interested in that. She'd be more willing to pilot the TARDIS if touching the levers shot her with 10000 volts of electricity.

"Look, do you realize how long I've been confined to one planet?" the Doctor said. He didn't sound angry at Jo, but he did sound upset.

"All that talk of yours about travelling in time and space, it was true," Jo said in astonishment, "I thought that was just Marion saying one of her jokes and you were going along with it,"

"It wasn't any kind of joke! Before I was stranded on Earth, I spent all my time exploring new worlds and seeking the wonders of the universe. And then Marion started to pop up here and there to travel along with me,"

"You know about that right?" Marion asked, "You'd have to. You have to have met me at least," Marion mumbled under her breath, "Colony, Claw, Mind, Terror. Three times before? Yeah. Three at least. Surely I've told you about this right?"

"Well, yes of course. But that's different. Oh!" her eyes got big, "Is that what you meant when you said 'nice to meet you' earlier? But if this is the first time we've met how did you know my...well I suppose you knew my name the same way you seem to know most things right?"

"Bingo!" Marion said, giving her a finger gun gesture.

What she didn't say was:

"How is a single person being knocked about from place to place more believable to you than a man having a Time Machine. How did you think the Master did what he did? Did you think he was just a human dude doing a bit?"

That actually would be pretty funny if the Master was just some guy.

"Well, do you know what's out there?" Jo asked.

"A little. I also know that the sooner we go outside and deal with whatever problem we've been sent to deal with, the sooner you can get back to Earth,"

"Don't you want to set foot in another world?" the Doctor coaxed.

"Well, yes, I do but I-"

"Well, then Jo-Jo. Let's go!" Marion said, clapping her hands. She was anxious to be out of the TARDIS. The watery-hot chocolate sensation wasn't something Marion was a fan of.

The Doctor retrieved his cloak off a chair near the console and when he put it on, his look magically changed from James Bond adjacent to Birthday Magician.

"We'll just take a quick look around, and then I'll try and get you back to Earth. All right?"

Jo sighed. "All right,"

"Great! Come on!"

And the three of them left the TARDIS.

(Next Chapter: Listen Man, I Just Really Like Rocks)

Marion: At least I would've died in a pretty badass way I mean, trying to stop a giant death scorpion, getting knocked off a high point in a church, sent careening towards the floor, all the while organ music blasts? At least it's iconic,"

Doctor: This conversation is literally doing nothing to make me think that you're okay. I hope you know that.

I was trying to imply that the Doctor was relieved to see them ended up where they did because the last time Time Lords took control of the Doctor's TARDIS when he was inside with a companion…

It didn't end great.

Later skaters. Make sure to drop a comment and/or talk to me on tumblr