.The Doctor's Wife.
~Catherine Wood~
We had crashed in some sort of graveyard. Well, junkyard, but I recognized the parts of TARDIS's all over the yard. I was completely right. This was indeed a trap. And yet, I still didn't say anything. I probably should have. It would have saved us a lot of trouble, but I wondered if whatever was blocking me wasn't allowing me to warn the Doctor of things. It hadn't with the Siren and I hadn't had any gift of the sight, so I stood silent, looking at the graveyard with solemn eyes.
"So what kind of trouble's your friend in?" Amelia asked, wandering through the yard, picking up a piece of wiring and throwing it back down with carelessness.
"He was in a bind," the Doctor told her, examining the pieces for himself. It seemed as though he hardly noticed the fact that they were TARDIS pieces, though something in the back of his mind must have noticed because his continuance matched mine. "A bit of a pickle," he continued. "Sort of distressed."
"Ah, you can't just say you don't know," Amelia pointed out.
I laughed.
"But what is this place?" Rory wondered, looking around as well. "The scrap yard at the end of the universe?"
"Not end of, outside of," said the Doctor.
I rolled my eyes. "It's completely on the edge of the Universe, he's just being ominous. It's quite like a bubble hanging onto a larger bubble. Almost like a parasite on the Universe. Something another universe created, but it fell off and latched onto ours."
"Yes, but nothing like that at all."
His silliness was making me slightly irritated. I loved when he made things complicated for Amelia and Rory, but right now, the Doctor was trying to avoid the obvious, and he didn't even realize that he was. I really did want to say something, warn him maybe, but something in me kept my mouth shut, so I went along with his silliness, and let him be happy before the inevitable happened.
"Completely drained," the Doctor sighed, petting the TARDIS's wooden side. "Look at her. She'll probably refuel just by being here. Now, this place. What do we think, eh?" the Doctor threw a rock in the air and I gracefully caught it in the air.
"Gravity's just point ten percent less than Earth's, air's breathable, though lacks the normal amount of Nitrogen a human needs. And it smells like-"
"Armpits," Amelia complained.
"Yeah, armpits," the Doctor agreed.
I shrugged. "I was going to say death, but sure, that works too."
"What about all of this stuff?" Rory wondered, indicating to the graveyard around him. "Where did this come from?"
"Well, there's a rift," said the Doctor. "Now and then stuff gets sucked through it. Not a bubble, a plughole. The universe has a plughole and we've just fallen down it."
"Like I said, bubble on the edge of a bigger bubble," I added again.
"Thief!" a new call came. "Thief, you're my thief!"
A woman ran around a mountain of trash, throwing herself into the Doctor's arms. He was hesitant to catcher, but caught her all the same, a wide look in his eyes. He gave me a panicked look, but there was nothing much I could do other than take a few steps closer to him just in case the woman in his arms did anything dangerous.
"She's dangerous," another woman called, coming into view. "Guard yourselves."
"Look at you!" the first woman shouted, looking the Doctor up and down as if she knew him. "Goodbye. No, not goodbye. What's the other one?"
The woman laid a big fat kiss on the Doctor's mouth, taking him completely by surprise. He pushed away quickly, and I sprung into action, either protecting the Doctor or protecting the woman I was about to slap if she dare kissed the Doctor again.
"Watch out," a man warned, following closely behind the second woman. "Careful. Keep back from her. Welcome strangers. Lovely. Sorry about the mad person." The man smiled, but in no way did it seem at all like a kind smile.
These two people, besides the woman that kissed the Doctor, were hardly what they were in the beginning, I could tell. Though they kept their other parts hidden, I could tell that they were a mix of all races just by looking at them. I had never met these kind of people before. They were quite ... patchwork.
"Oh, you!" The first woman exclaimed when she was in my hands. "Oh, you! Water that flows under a bridge! The listener! You've heard my voice before, but now it's in your own language! No, this is English."
I almost cried. This person in front of me was so familiar, I almost fell apart when she spoke. the way she spoke was a way that I had been hearing for a long time, and at the moment, I didn't even realize it. The odd patterns, the bouncing back and forth. I had been hearing it for so long. Why didn't I hear it then?
"Oh. Oh, we are sorry, my dove," the patchwork woman replied. "She's off her head. They call me Auntie." She curtsied.
"And I'm Uncle. I'm everybody's Uncle." The patchwork man patted the Doctor on the cheek. "Just keep back from this one. She bites!"
"Do I?" the woman asked. "Excellent." She reached out to try and bite me, but she was unsuccessful with my grip around her.
"Don't do that dear," I said with a shake of my head.
"Yes, you're right. I shan't." Her happy expression dropped. "Oh, but now you're sad. No, you're not. You will be sad. My thief will make you sad."
I glanced over at the Doctor. "Of course. That happens a lot." I said the words to her with too much honesty.
"It means the smell of dust after rain," said the woman suddenly.
"What does?' Rory asked.
"Petrichor."
"But we didn't ask."
She smiled. "Not yet. But, you will."
"No, no, Idris," the patchwork woman said, wrapping her arms around the woman named Idris, pulling her away from me. "I think you should have a rest."
"Rest, Yes, yes. Good idea. I'll just see if there's an off switch." Idris dropped to the ground, thankfully not before Rory caught her in his arms. The Doctor was close enough to both of them that he helped Rory prop her up in a broken seat nearby.
"Is that it? She dead now. So sad." The patchwork man didn't sound sad at all.
Rory crinkled his nose. "No, she's still breathing."
"Nephew, take Idris somewhere she can not bite people."
I looked to where Uncle was talking to, and not too far away, an Ood stood, looking all mysterious and silent. Unlike most Ood, this one's eyes were green. It made me wonder if his mind was really his own in this case, but he seemed aware enough.
I smiled. "It's been a long time since I've seen an Ood."
"An Ood?" Amelia asked.
"Ah yes!" the Doctor cried out. "It's an Ood. Oods are good. Love an Ood. Hello Ood." He approached nephew just as I was wondering how much he would say Ood in the span of five seconds. "Can you talk? Oh, I see. It's damaged." He pointed to the Oods brain, encased with a white orb. "May I? It might just be on the wrong frequency."
The Doctor used his sonic to mess with the Ood's brain until a thousand voices rang out, filling the air with cries of pain and distress. Warnings and asks for help. The Doctor looked around them, trying to listen to them all, but I heard what the message was. A distress beacon from all the Time Lords that had ended up here, more than just the Corsair. The Doctor had to know by now that this was a trap. The voices faded.
"What was that?" said Rory.
"No, no. It's picking up something else," the Doctor said absentmindedly, still trying to piece together what he had heard. "But that's- that's not possible. That's- that's- ... Who else is here? Tell me. Show me. Show us."
I shook my head. He wasn't getting it. There was no one here. No one except us and the patchwork people. The other Time Lords that had come here were dead and the Doctor was next. Yet it was too late for me to say anything now, the Doctor wouldn't listen. Not until he had proof.
"Just what you see," Auntie told him. "Just the four of us, and the House. Nephew, will you take Idris somewhere safe where she can't hurt nobody?"
Nephew scooped up Idris so that she was following sluggishly next to him, being dragged along. She awoke slightly, looking around her all dazed like. She muttered one more thing as she was whisked around the corner.
"I need the melody. The melody played under the river."
It hit me like a brick wall. This was the TARDIS! The voice I had been hearing for years was her! The matrix has been taken out and put into a living, breathing body. Of course! That made so much sense. Without saying anything, I followed Nephew and the TARDIS, right into the building atop the planet's surface. It was almost like a maze inside, and I followed along the trail behind Nephew's green glow which I could hardly see in front of me. That was until I found a room with a cell like cage. Inside was a a load of blankets and sheets piled on top of one another to make a bed. Nephew threw the TARDIS down on the pile and moved outside of the cell, looking like he was going to leave. I quickly followed the TARDIS inside, stooping down at her side and checked her pulse. She really did look like she was dead. Well, a TARDIS matrix trapped inside a human body really would kill her. She needed to be transferred.
The cage door shut behind me. I jumped up, going to the bars as Nephew walked away.
"Hey wait!" I called after him, but there was no use. This obviously was part of the plan to isolate the Doctor, and it had worked. The TARDIS has dragged me here. Smart.
Idris stirred, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. "I've never slept before. I'm not sure how I felt about it. I now feel very tired. No, I will. Tenses really are difficult aren't they?" She noticed me out of the corner of her eye. "Oh, Cathy! You're following me! Don't follow me, it's a trap!"
"You aren't meant to be in a human body," I told the woman, settling my arm on her shoulder. "You're going to burn out the body."
"No I won't," the TARDIS argued. "You'll take it upon yourself to be my host and you're the only one in the Universe that could handle it without dying. But, of course, you were going to say all that weren't you?"
I laughed. "Yes, yes I was."
"Human brains are so small, and yet so complex. So much love, so much hate. So much ... death. I have love, I have hate, but I am much less complex."
"I'm sure it will be better to concentrate in a bigger head," I told her.
"A bigger head with a bigger mind. But if you insist, I can not argue."
The TARDIS opened her mouth and a gold dust flew out, filling the air with a golden glow. My own mouth opened as the TARDIS matrix entered my body. It was the oddest feeling, as if my insides were being squished away as someone else fit into my skin. My brain was now being shared, my heart beating twice for someone else. I suddenly heard the TARDIS's thoughts, going right through my head, but also coming out my mouth.
"It's not very roomy in here," the TARDIS complained.
"Sorry, I'm trying my best," I told her. "It's not like I can just scoot over."
"Hold on, I'll adjust."
"You have so much information inside your head."
"I'm still younger than you."
"Information is information, my friend."
"I want you to know, that it is very nice to talk to you in person."
I smiled. "It's very nice to talk to you too!"
"Do fish have fingers?"
*~~~~~*~~~~~*
Let me know what you think! It's a far fetched idea, but I thought it would be fun.
~Cassie
Word Count: 2,019