Midnight ⋆ Doctor Who²

13. The Scrap Yard At The End Of The Universe

THE MOOD IN THE TARDIS HAVE BEEN DRASTICALLY UPLIFTED. Ever since Aurora got some sleep and the Doctor was back on track, everything just seemed to flow easily.

"And then we discovered it wasn't the Robot King after all, it was the real one," the Doctor was telling Rory as he worked around the console. "Fortunately, we were able to re-attach the head."

"Do you believe any of this stuff?" Rory asks the girls as they walk down the stairs.

Amy frowns at him, the recollection obviously not nice. "We were there."

Aurora crosses her arms and looks at the Doctor. "Yeah and 'we' didn't re-attach the head, I did." Rory gives her a worried look. "Yeah. It was weird."

The Doctor is about to answer, but something flashes on the console. "Oh, it's the warning lights. I'm getting rid of those. They never stop."

She stares at him. "No. Doctor, no."

"Why not?" he pouts. "It's annoying."

"Just... don't." She raises an eyebrow as he opens his mouth, before they both freeze.

Something is knocking on the TARDIS' door. Amy walks to them, confused. "What was that?"

"The door," the Doctor flatly answers. "It knocked."

"Right," Rory lets out. "We are in deep space."

"Very, very deep," he confirms.

It knocks again, and Aurora realizes that she and the Doctor walked to the door, slowly. Her heart hammers in her chest. "And somebody's knocking," she mutters.

The Doctor opens the doors, Aurora right behind him, ready for whatever is behind the door. Well, maybe not ready for a small glowing box outside.

He holds out his hand. "Oh, come here. Come here, you scrumptious little beauty."

The box flies inside, making Aurora duck. It zooms past Amy and Rory, before ending up hitting the Doctor on the chest.

"A box?" Rory exclaims.

"Doctor, what is it?" Amy asks.

Aurora frowns at the small box, before memories slowly overcome her. She feels her stomach twist into a knot of anticipation as her gaze meets the Doctor's. "There's no way..."

But he doesn't let her finish, already too excited for his own good. "I've got mail." He runs up the stairs to the console. "Time Lord emergency messaging system. In an emergency, we'd wrap up thoughts in psychic containers and send them through time and space. Anyway, there's a living Time Lord still out there, and it's one of the good ones."

Aurora wants to slow down. The Doctor is letting his feelings cloud his judgment, and he's not asking himself the right questions — but who is she, to stifle his hope like this? The Dawn doesn't have a say in this. She's worried he's going to get hurt, but she's not sure if telling him right now that this is weird would do much good.

"You said there weren't any other Time Lords left," Rory remarks, and she's thankful for it.

"There are no Time Lords left anywhere in the universe," he answers, his tone obvious. "But the universe isn't where we're going."

Aurora blinks. "I'm sorry?"

He throws her the small glowing box. "See that snake?"

She frowns. "Yeah, the Ourobouros, the snake swallowing its own tail."

"The mark of the Corsair," he tells her. "Fantastic bloke. Perhaps you've met him. He had that snake as a tattoo in every regeneration. Didn't feel like himself unless he had the tattoo. Or herself, a couple of times. Oooh, she was a bad girl."