AN/ This fic takes place at the end of 'Last of the Time Lords.' It's a kind of deleted scene that happens after the main climax. I do not own anything to do with Doctor Who, I am just a mere fangirl. TARDIS PoV, part of my TARDIS 100 series. Betaed by Davide. Cheers!
I woke up to pain. It was blinding, and for a moment, over-whelming. I didn't know where I was. I couldn't remember what had happened at first. Then it started to come back. I recalled… the end of the universe… the Master… a regeneration… then everything became red and there was Martha and Jack and my Doctor and a grandfather paradox and… pain. Oh, the pain!
I cried out telepathically. It was a distress signal like no other.
The Doctor and Captain Jack Harkness, who had been working together on repairing me, both flinched and winced.
"What was that?" Jack asked.
"It's the TARDIS," the Doctor explained, his voice reflecting his sympathy for my condition. "She's woken up."
Jack gave a slight grimace. "She doesn't sound very happy."
"She's in a lot of pain… absolute agony." My Doctor took off his glasses and placed a hand on my mangled Time Rotor. It was still giving off a faint pinkish hue. This colour may have been healthy for a human, it was a sure symbol of my ill health. He spoke soothingly both out loud and in his mind. "It's okay, Old Girl. Easy… it's okay. It's me. It's your Doctor, and Jack too. Captain Jack Harkness. You remember him, I know you do. I know he feels strange, but he's okay. He's still our friend. The Master's gone. You'll never have to worry about him again. We're fixing you now. You're going to be just fine, I promise, just like before. I kept my promise to you then, and I'll keep it again now. Everything's going to be fine… well, as much as it ever is."
I calmed down significantly, intensely relieved despite the lingering pain. "My Doctor…. It hurts."
"I know, I know it hurts. We're taking care of it, don't you worry."
Silently, he told me of what happened to the Master, his defeat, death and cremation. I knew he was grieving, but he had shut that away for now to focus on the task at hand... namely fixing me.
Jack was watching the Doctor with a curious smile. "You love her, don't you?" It was more a statement than a question.
"She's very important to me, you know that," the Doctor said. He put his glasses back on and returned to his work. "She's all I have left of Galifrey. Really this time." He smiled grimly and without humour. "I'm stuck without her. Trapped. Homeless." He was remembering all the other many times we'd been separated with seemingly no hope of getting back together. I wanted to cling to him and his mind and never let go.
"It's strange hearing her voice in my mind again," Jack commented, also getting back to work. "Didn't realise how much I missed it… her singing, you know?"
The Doctor nodded. He didn't fell the need to say much more on the subject of how much he missed me.
"How do you think she survived?" Jack wondered. "Two and a half years as a paradox machine."
The Doctor gave a half-shrug. "She's tough. She's a survivor. Always has been. Just like me and you… well, maybe more like me than you." He raised his eyes to the immortal man with a ghost of a smile. "The parallel world Rose got trapped in… the first time we visited there, it was by accident. The TARDIS fell out of the Time Vortex and died on the alternate earth. She was stone dead, no life at all… except for this." He pointed to the small greenish-lit core under my grating from his story. "It was still glowing, still alive, that tiny little thing. There was nothing in that universe that would be able to resuscitate her again except me. I gave her ten years of my life and she powered back up enough to get us out of there."
Jack smiled at the Doctor's tale. "Was that the story behind the promise you made to her before?"
"Nah, though I did promise her then too… but no. That was for a different time. More… tinkering and maintenance was requited."
"This is more than just normal tinkering and maintenance though." Jack gazed briefly around at the mess of parts, all in various states of repair. "Have you ever had to do a major rebuild like this before?"
"Oh yes. After the Time War we both had to regenerate. That's when I became the big-eared chap in the leather jacket, and when she chose the coral-ish décor." I watched those memories move through his mind, only to be locked away again. Those doors slammed tightly shut. "Before then, she was very white and clean and simpler. Some called it disco. Then she changed again different support structures and all, and you could see the stars in the ceiling…" his gazed moved upwards briefly and he sighed. "And then she was damaged and of course, and I had to fix her. Again."
Jack knew he was getting into dangerous territory talking about the Time War. He mentally kicked himself, figuring he should have guessed it in the first place. "Makes sense," he said.
The men worked in near silence for a short while longer. I didn't like the quiet. I'd lived for a whole year with nothing but white noise and pain. While I was grateful for the presence of these two, whom I considered to be my friends and family, I still disliked the still air between them. I weakly nudged the Doctor's mind, and he understood.
"She, the TARDIS, kept your old room the same, you know. Rose's too."
Jack looked up. "Really? How do you know? You ever try to go inside them?"
"She told me… and yeah, I tried to see them once or twice, but the TARDIS wouldn't let me for whatever reason. Never fully explained why."
"Probably for the best." Jack smiled a little.
The Doctor gave him a look. "Why? Do you have anything dangerous in your room?"
"No, not dangerous, just…" He paused, searching for the right word, remembering what he had stored in a chest under his bed. "…private."
"Hmmm…" The Doctor used the sonic screwdriver to weld the ends of a few wires together. He let the matter drop. Even still, I could see that he was wondering what Jack had in his room… and wether or not he should ask Jack to travel with him again.
Through the lingering ache in my various systems I gathered my strength. I took the chance to study Jack. He still had that wrongness about him. I remembered him startling me, grabbing onto my wooden shell and my panicked flight to the end of the universe in an attempt to shake him off. He still made me slightly uncomfortable, but despite this, to say I preferred his company to the Master's would be an understatement. At least I knew that Jack would never do anything bad to me. Not on purpose, anyway.
It was a little scary dipping into his brain though. He was… dead. There were still neurons firing and thoughts flitting through and plenty of other brain activity, but there was nothing powering it all that was natural to a human body, or even most alien bodies for that matter. I could still taste the Time Vortex in him. Stuck in time, stuck in life. The Immortal Captain Jack Harkness. I had to admit it had a nice ring.
Jack paused in his work, the tool he was holding still poised over the device he was supposed to be fixing.
"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked him.
The Captain blinked and shrugged. "The TARDIS is in my head, poking around a little. It's okay, I don't really mind. Just not used to it any more."
The Doctor's gaze travelled up my partially repaired central collum. I filled his mind as much as I was able. "Well…" he sighed a little. "She's curious about you, Jack… and rightly so, I suppose."
"Yeah." Jack went back to work and I continued to flit through his brain. He was thinking about his Torchwood team, and what he should tell them about the Doctor and myself.
I was finally starting to feel a bit like my old self. A faint purr started in my engines. Both Jack and the Doctor heard it and looked up, smiling. "That's a good sound, right?" Jack asked.
"Oh yes!" The Doctor bounded to his feet and Jack followed his lead. "That's a very good sound! That means that if I click this, then she should…"
He flicked a switch on my mangled console and I hummed a little louder, suddenly bursting into song. At the same time, the pinkish hue in my rotor disappeared all together and was replaced with my usual, healthy greenish-blue. The men were bathed in the light, and they were both grinning.
"That's feeling a lot better, isn't it?" The Doctor beamed, proud and loving. "The good old girl."
"Still a lot to do though, Doctor," Jack reminded him.
"Yeah, but we'll get through it. No worries."
My song made a decrescendo and I relaxed. I didn't feel quite up to anything as tiring as a flight through the Vortex, but at least the pain was going away.
Encouraged by my good progress, the Doctor scurried to another patch of bare wiring and set his sonic screwdriver to buzz upon it. Jack also went back to work, an old musical show tune beginning to repeat itself in his head. He hummed it under his breath, provoking the Doctor and myself to smile again.