CHRYSALIS

THE GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE

We emerge from the tardis and look around the dark room of the spaceship.

"It's a spaceship! Brilliant, I got a spaceship on my first go!"

"Looks kind of abandoned... Anyone on board?"

"Nah, nothing here. Well! Nothing dangerous. Well! Not that dangerous." The Doctor pauses, "You know what, I'll just have a quick scan... in case there's anything dangerous."

I let out a laugh, watching him walk over to a control panel in the center of the room and start tapping some buttons.

"So, what's the date? How far have we gone?" I rest my head on his shoulder.

"About three thousand years into your future, give or take." He pulls on a switch and the lights turn on, the roof gradually opening into a window that shows a spectacular view of the stars outside, "Fifty-first century. Diagmar Cluster, you're a long way from home, Mickey! Two and a half galaxies!"

Mickey moves to a porthole, gazing out in awe.

The Doctor rummages around the control panel, picking up bits and pieces of broken tech and looking unimpressed, "Dear me, had some cowboys in here! Got a ton of repair work going on." He throws the pieces down, noticing a screen with a diagram of the spaceship on it, "Now that's odd, look at that. All the warp engines are going... full capacity! There's enough power running through this ship to punch a hole in the universe... and we're not moving. So where's all that power going?"

"Where'd all the crew go?" I ask.

The Doctor leans forward and tweaks some knobs on the control panel, "Good question, no life readings on board."

We all gaze around and the Doctor sniffs the air, "Can you smell that?"

"Someone's cooking." Rose says.

The Doctor presses something else and a door opens behind us.

We walk through and see part of the wall and floor with 18th-century decor as well as a lit fireplace.

"Well, there's something you don't see in your average spaceship. Eighteenth-century! French! Nice mantel." He pulls his sonic out and points it at the fireplace, "Not a hologram."

We bend down and examine it closely while Mickey and Rose explore the rest of the room.

"Not even a reproduction, this is an eighteenth-century french fireplace." I inform him, "And there's another room through there."

"How do you know that it's real?" He asks.

"It has simple but geometric sloping and slanting jambs. Those jambs are topped by a monolithic lintel decorated with a flat molding running along its lower edge. The lintel is also animated with beautiful finely sculpted rosettes just above the jambs. I was very obsessed with the French Revolution when I was a child."

"There can't be another room through there, that's the outer hull of the ship." Rose points out.

The Doctor crouches down, looking through the fire into the other room. I do the same and see a young girl with long blonde hair, dressed in a nightgown looking back at us.

"Hello!"

"Hello..."

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Reinette."

"Reinette, that's a lovely name. Can you tell me where you are at the moment, Reinette?" The Doctor asks.

"In my bedroom."