"So, you're coming with us?" Donna asks in a light tone when Lana finally feels like she can get out of bed and walk around without feeling like she'll pass out.
"Yeah. If that's okay?" Lana glances at the other woman, trying to tell what she's feeling, and unconsciously reaches out psychically for just a faint brush—and immediately gets an accidental rush of Donna's thoughts. Lana's eyes widen before she gets control of herself. She's still unused to the amount of power she has after having to fight for every bit for so long.
It comes to her as easy as breathing—now she has to fight to not to use it. She belatedly remembers the Doctor's warning to not use her psychic abilities casually any longer, and she feels the blood drain from her face. Did the Doctor notice? Is he going to kick her out?
"Oh, of course, it's going to be brilliant." Donna must have seen her turn pale. "Hey, are you okay? Should you be up already?"
The Doctor materializes behind her, or at least it seems like it, and Lana can't keep herself from flinching a little. "Donna, would you be alright with showing Lana around? The TARDIS should have made a room for her already."
"'Course." Donna says. "Right, come on then. I don't know how qualified I am for this—I'm pretty sure there's new rooms every time I try to find mine."
Lana follows the other woman around the main center console and down one of the halls. She looks around at the décor as Donna talks.
"Well, but the Doctor would probably say they're not new rooms, they've just been hidden in the fabric of space-time so as to not blow up our puny human minds, blah blah blah—they're new rooms, basically. So far, I've been to a swimming pool, a gym, a movie theater—with movies from the future, how brilliant is that?—and a couple different libraries, or maybe one that's so big that it looks like multiple combined, I can never tell."
Donna keeps up a steady, cheerful stream of words, more than Lana's heard in a row in about ten years. She's not sure how to respond, but it seems like Donna isn't looking for someone to talk back, which is sort of relieving. Lana's content to just look around.
The walls and ceilings are in the same style as the console room, with yellow, curving archways that seem like they've grown out of the ground, and green lights illuminating the hallway. There's corners and turns all over the place, even a few dusty doors, but Donna just keeps them going straight. Lana wonders if she's free to explore everywhere, or if some places are off limits.
"And I'm pretty sure there's like, a lot of bedrooms in here, all these locked doors, y'know, but I only ever see mine and sometimes the Doctor's, and I never go in there, obviously." Donna adds the next part in a stage whisper. "But I think that the TARDIS keeps the rooms of every companion that the Doctor's ever had, all stored up in here somewhere. Gives me the shivers sometimes—like their ghosts are still around."
"How many—I mean, how old is…" Lana trails off, unsure how to ask the question without seeming rude.
"I don't know." Donna answers, giving her a knowing look. "There's times when he acts like a little kid, but there's other times when, well… I can see that he's really quite old. I know of at least two others before me, but I'm sure that there's been more."
Lana furrows her brow as she digests that.
"Oh, there's my room, want to look?" says Donna.
She stops at a door that looks the same as all the others at first, but the longer Lana looks at it the more it seems to have character. She gets the sense of Donna, just from looking at it, somehow.
Dark maroon words write themselves on the front in curving letters, spelling Donna Noble, with an inlaid engraving of a crown and two hearts interlocked. She could've sworn the images had just appeared, but it seems as if they were there the whole time.
"Yeah, I know." Donna says, misinterpreting her expression. "My mum would go off at me if she saw that my door had a crown on it—she's always getting on me for having airs. Want to try opening it?"
Lana glances at the other woman and then tries the knob. It doesn't move. Donna laughs, but not in a mean way—more in a way that invites Lana to join in. "Just wanted to show you that the doors usually won't open for anyone but you. The TARDIS controls everything, I think, and she's not gonna let anyone in except for you unless you let 'em. As for me, I've always wanted it locked when I'm not in or so the Doctor doesn't walk in on me. It's not like I've started praying, like, 'Dear TARDIS, please keep my door locked', she sort of just... does it. Pretty mad, right?"
Lana nods, and Donna seems alright with questions, she asks one. "Do you know how big this ship really is?"
"No, just that it's really big. Which isn't very helpful."
"I wonder how that works." Lana says quietly, not meaning for the other woman to hear, but Donna just looks thoughtful.
"I've never really thought about it, just that it does."
"How do you find your room if the halls look different every time?" Lana asks, thinking about wandering the halls and never finding her way back.
"The Doctor just told me that the TARDIS would guide me to it. She's not speaking in my head, but some directions just feel right. My room's never too far away from the console room, anyway."
Lana glances back—she's not sure if she could find her way back to the console room, which makes her feel sort of panicky and trapped again. Then, just as she has the thought, she feels a strong impression of retracing her steps back—two lefts, a right, and then a left again. She struggles to keep her face expressionless at the surprising feeling. The TARDIS really is a sentient, telepathic ship. Strangely enough, Lana doesn't feel threatened by it. She's never been anywhere else that made her feel this welcomed.
She reaches out with her telepathy, curious if she could feel the TARDIS on her own. She braces herself, expecting the pain, and feels a wave of relief when it doesn't come. Her powers come so much easier now, but... she doesn't feel anything. Lana frowns and tries again—
"What are you doing?" Donna asks.
Lana looks away quickly. "I just got distracted," She lies easily.
Donna puts her hands on her hips. "You're almost as good at lying as the Doctor, but if I can tell when he's lying, I can tell when you are. You're using your telepathy or psychicness, right?"
"Yeah," Lana admits, biting her lip. "I'm trying to find the TARDIS."
Donna doesn't look repulsed, or even alarmed. "And did you?"
Lana shakes her head, feeling strange at the lack of reaction.
"Well, maybe you could try... I don't know, 'feeling' all around you? Like instead of just focusing on one person like you're used to, seeing the bigger picture. I'm not very good at that, sometimes. But I dunno, I don't have an extra sense."
Lana nods, thinking. Donna's right—Lana is used to focusing on specific people and ignoring other things, but if the TARDIS really is the entire ship...
Instead of searching for just a core, Lana pushes outward, all around her, trying to feel everything. She expects it to be overwhelming, but instead she just feels warmth, and a sense of gold. She feels like there's much more beneath those sensations, but she pulls back because it feels like too much. "I think I found it." She smiles despite herself. "I focused on everything instead of just one thing."
"Brilliant." Donna says. "I'm glad I could help. Should we find you your room, then? Maybe you should try looking for it."
"Yeah, I'll try." Lana's surprised at her own eagerness. She's been so stifled for so long that she supposes she shouldn't be shocked that she enjoys using her powers without the pain that had come with it for years. She starts walking, trusting the TARDIS to lead her. It's odd, to trust so easily.
Lana turns a few corners, feeling with her instincts, until she finds a corridor with two doors: one at the end of the hallway and another to her right that feels somehow small. She moves towards the first door and then, hesitating, turns back.
"Where are you going?" Donna asks. "That's your room, isn't it?"
"But there's another one just here that might be it." Lana points out, walking towards it.
"Oh." Donna looks at the door and her eyes seem to slide off it before she focuses and blinks. "Oh, yeah there is. I suppose you can try it if you think it's the right one?"
Lana isn't sure if it's the right one, but she tries the handle anyway. It's stiff and clearly locked. She doesn't feel anything from the TARDIS, not even a negative feeling, just... nothing, like a vacuum.
"Not that one, then." Donna says. When Lana looks at her, eyebrows raised, she says, "Well, it's your room, it's never going to be locked for you, is it? Must be something else."
Lana turns away, feeling a headache pulsing at her temples. She steps towards the other door and knows it's the right one immediately, but she stops before opening it again. It feels somehow... momentous.
It's just a door, she tells herself, and pulls the handle.
It opens easily, as if the hinges had been oiled or something, and Lana steps through the doorway.
The room is physically quite large, with a sloped ceiling that converges on a point as if she's a princess in a castle. It doesn't feel big, though, because the space is practically filled. A queen-sized bed sits against one wall, alongside two nightstands on either side, each with a lamp on top made from spun dark blue glass.
The bed is covered in a purple quilt and the head of it has a frankly obscene number of pillows, in various shades of blue, purple, and silver. She has an absurd urge to take a flying leap into them and never be seen again. The bed-frame is a four-poster made of dark mahogany that can be closed with blue curtains, with a wooden chest at the end of the bed.
On another wall, there's an empty wardrobe made of dark mahogany that looks so old it makes Lana think of a book she read as a child, about a wardrobe that takes you to a magical world. She feels as if she's stepped into a similarly unfamiliar place, since there's still more in the room. Lana vaguely remembers staying with many other children in the orphanage, and all the kids there had gotten one twin-sized bed and a nightstand to store possessions in.
But across from the bed sits a large wooden desk made of the same mahogany material. Above it is an empty cork board with a few pins scattered around it. Next to that is a bookshelf made of light pine that stretches to the ceiling, including a sliding ladder to reach the top shelves. It sits empty but it looks like it could include all the books she could ever want.
Near the bookshelf is a window seat with similar kinds of pillows that were on the bed. Above it, the window shutters are closed, making Lana wonder what there would be to see, or if it's simply a window for decoration. Something makes her think that everything in the TARDIS has a purpose, though.
Finally, on the other wall near the door—which is now made of old wood instead of the yellow color that it had been outside—is a vanity, complete with a mirror and drawers. She wonders what's she's meant to do with that. The older girls at the foster care had sometimes done their makeup, but Lana has no idea how. She guesses that she'd use the mirror, though.
The floor is wood, with knots and cracks like it's the bark of an actual tree, but most of it is covered in a blue rug. A few plants are scattered around in the corners of the room, some that Lana's never seen before on Earth. The walls are painted purple, and the ceiling is a deep blue that seems to reach up into the night sky.
"Bloody hell." Donna says behind her. "This is nice."
Lana realizes that she's been standing stock still in the center of the room for a few minutes. All she can think is that this beautiful room can't be for her. Donna keeps talking, either oblivious to Lana's shock or giving her time to think before Lana has to talk.
"Definitely a different feeling than my room. Yours is more—what do they call it? Cool colors. Mine's all reds and yellows, but I like the purple and blue. Sort of a rustic Victorian style. Do you like it, though? That's what's most important." Donna looks at her with a sort of soft expression that Lana has a hard time deciphering.
Like it? Of course she likes it. She remembers dreaming about a room like this, about looking up to a ceiling that shows the night sky, feeling like she's a princess with an actual wardrobe and vanity and bookshelf. She'd thought she'd moved past it, but of course somehow the TARDIS had picked it right out of her head.
"I love it." Lana says. The danger of admitting that feels less extreme. Donna isn't going to take this room away from her because she says she likes it.
"I'm so glad! I remember seeing my room for the first time—it was really great."
"It, er. It feels a little overwhelming, though." She admits. She hesitates but keeps saying the words she's thinking. "I've been so long with nothing, you know? Just pure whiteness and a toilet." She doesn't feel ready for it. Doesn't feel like she deserves it, when she's just come into a spaceship that's bigger on the inside, taken in by a man that's saved her life and her future and doesn't think she's a freak. The longing for what this represents is so powerful, it scares her.
Donna shrugs. "I'm sure the TARDIS could make you a less intense place to sleep until you want something like this, if you felt like it."
"Could it really? I don't want to... offend it." Lana can't believe she's saying this about a spaceship. She gets the oddest feeling of laughter in the back of her mind.
"I feel like only the Doctor offends the TARDIS." Donna laughs. "Come on, we'd have to go back the console room so the ship can shuffle itself around without breaking our brains or something." She walks out the wooden door, and with a last look at the magnificent room, Lana leaves.
As she follows Donna back to the console room, Lana barely notices that the other locked door is gone entirely.
Lana's alone in her new, smaller room, just sitting there and drawing swirls in a sketchpad she'd found somewhere. She's bored, so her mind starts doing what it had always done when she was bored: plotting a way out of her prison.
If I could knock the Doctor out with that vase, then I would probably be able to run out before Donna noticed. Or I could convince him that I wanted to visit Earth and then sprint outside, maybe use my psychic abilities to—
The pencil she's drawing with snaps with a loud crack and the sketchbook falls out of her hands.
"I don't need to do that anymore." Lana says out loud, angry with herself at even thinking those things. "I could leave any time I wanted. They wouldn't try to stop me."
Maybe she's been alone in her room for too long. It's impossible to tell the time in the TARDIS, there's no clocks or anything, but she's become an expert at telling how long of a time has passed from Torchwood, and she thinks it's been at least three hours.
"I can walk out." She tells herself, forcing her legs to move and to turn the door handle. She hesitates, then throws it open. Obviously, no alarms ring, there's no guards, just an empty hallway. She stills her shaking hands and starts walking, hoping the TARDIS will lead her to either the Doctor or Donna.
Eventually, she finds an open area with the door open. She enters, and it looks like a standard living room, except the furniture looks like it's permanently stuck in the seventies. Donna waves, but the Doctor doesn't even look up from the odd machine he's building, a look of deep concentration on his face. Donna's reading a book that Lana doesn't recognize.
Lana stops in the room, looks around, then is unsure what she's looking for and just sits down on one of the bright yellow couches. It's silent, so there's not much of a difference from her room at first, but the silence is different, somehow, because sometimes Lana hears Donna turning a page in her book or the Doctor dropping a bit of metal and sighing loudly.
It's nice. After a while she notices a Rubix cube and, remembering it from foster care, starts trying to solve it. It's been another half hour of this—she solves it in about twenty minutes—when Donna closes her book, stands, and declares she's going to find some food.
The Doctor perks up like he's been drawn out of a coma. "Want to go somewhere for it?"
"Yeah, I'd love to." Donna grins, then looks at Lana, who's watching this interaction with detached interest. "Do you want to go somewhere to get food, Lana, or would you rather stay in the TARDIS?"
She starts, remembering this new development where she gets asked her opinions. Another first for her: getting to choose the food she eats. Lana shrugs. "I don't really know food I like, so I don't really care."
Donna gives her an expectant look. "Are you sure?"
"I... think I'd like to go somewhere." Lana says, correcting herself.
The Doctor grins in a look almost identical to Donna and springs out of the barstool he was perched on. "Right! What are we thinking? Restaurant in New New York?" He glances at Lana. "Er, maybe not. There're some brilliant beaches in Barcelona."
Lana frowns. "Isn't Barcelona inland?" Maybe she's remembering her geography wrong.
"I mean the planet." He smirks at her.
"There's a planet—"
"Maybe just a beach on Earth, yeah? Maybe in California." Donna cuts in, rolling her eyes at the Doctor.
The Doctor makes a face. "Eurgh, California. Nope, not going there, pick somewhere else."
"The Bahamas." Lana says. They both look at her in surprise, and she averts her eyes. "I always thought it looked beautiful on the television. We don't have to, though."
"No, no, no." The Doctor says brightly. "Yeah, the Bahamas, sounds brilliant. Must be some good places to eat there, right?"
"What, you've never been?" Donna asks him as they get up and make their way to the console room. "Thought you'd been everywhere."
"Oh, no. The universe is much too big for that. Always more to see. You know, there was this one time I—" He cuts off suddenly. They haven't reached the console room, and Donna has to swerve to keep from running into him.
"What're you doing?" Donna crosses her arms.
"Actually, let's eat in the TARDIS. Lots of good stuff in the TARDIS kitchen. We could make whatever we want." The Doctor spins around. "Then we can go somewhere else! There's other good places to see. We can go to the Bahamas, Lana, just in a bit."
"Wait, what—"
"Let's go!" He almost runs in the opposite direction, and the TARDIS kitchen appears. Lana has no idea how to make herself anything, so Donna makes her a ham and cheese sandwich that's surprisingly good. The Doctor snacks on a banana and as soon as they finish eating, he stands up.
"Come on, come on, come on! Lots to see!"
Donna rolls her eyes at Lana. "He gets like this sometimes. It's best to just go along with it."
Lana nods and they end up in the console room.
He's already punching in the coordinates when he says, "How do you two feel about the Library?"
A/N *rubs hands together menacingly* it's time for silence in the library lads! so this is definitely the most self indulgent chapter lol but i hope some people enjoy the over-described bedroom as much as i did writing it! (someone's been watching to much howl's moving castle and it's me) anyway, so sorry for the later update! i was out of the country for two weeks and unable to write. because of that, it may be a little longer than the usual weekly update from now on so i can make sure i'm telling a cohesive story instead of feeling rushed. thanks to everyone for reading and please do leave a comment so i don't feel like i'm screaming into the void ;D oh, and the chapter title is from See the Light by Stephen Sanchez.