Hanger - TARDIS

[makeherblue]

[Takes place right after clone plot and arriving back on Stacy. After there]

“First sharks and now explosions!” The Doctor held up his ruined sonic screwdriver and turned it in the light. “I’ll have to proof against both, I suppose.”

He crossed the Hanger in long strides, expecting Otter Soother Daniel Jackson to keep up. Daniel had held himself rather well during the whole clone thing and what was more, he even saved his sonic for him! The Doctor found himself feeling rather fond of the human right this moment. Good man! Resourceful! But also being annoyingly close-mouthed about what he might have picked up from that encounter with the Other Doctor, which was surprising because he thought he knew humans and if there was anything he learned from all his time amongst them, it was they loved talking almost as much as he did! Questions in particular were their favorite, no matter how obvious or rhetorical or downright silly. Big big fan of the obvious questions. Basically they were a chatty species.

Part of the reason why he’d asked Daniel to come with him to the TARDIS.

If he was lucky, Daniel would tell him what he’d seen from that clone on his own, given enough time and company.

The Doctor was tucking the sonic back into his pocket when they came into sight of the TARDIS. He only paused for the briefest of beats as he took in the fact the old girl’s doors were wide open, positively gaping open! This wasn’t looking very looked out after and he wondered if maybe Jamie’s memory retention was failing thanks to him being an ex-dead man. Clearly the human needed a talking to! He approached cautiously, poking his head inside.

Everything in the console room looked in order, if you ignored the suspicious trail of foam cups leading away from the door and a few minute scratches on the glass which he knew for a fact hadn’t been there since he last checked. The Doctor’s lips pursed as he peered about, head weaving as he checked under the control console and then straightened. Where was Jamie? In fact, where were the rest of his friends?

“Better have a look around,” the Doctor lied, perhaps too cheerfully. “Long time away from home and I’m afraid River’s gone and organized things. I’m very specific on my organization system, I’ll have you know.”

He made a vague shooing motion at Daniel.

((So basically this is thread two, with the Doctor/Daniel/Rory jumping into a TARDIS taken over by the Master. Since the Master can switch up rooms (up to the players in the threads for what's wrong with the rooms) and trap people/shift people around, I guess assume timey-wimey things to allow different characters to stumble into each other? But yeah, I guess do subthreads for characters stumbling and we can subthread different people running into them.

I think we're looking at people in the TARDIS as: Victoria, Martha, The Master, River, Jamie, Doctor, Daniel, Rory, Amy, Eva. If I missed anyone, poke me!))

Comments

[makeherblue]

"Of course I am. More than a little bit, I'd say! Obviously you aren't psychic. Thought you were, what with your Otter Soothing tendencies." Evasive as ever, the Doctor continued on. "...Maybe it only affects otters. Anyway, what you saw was nothing. Just a few bad days."

Unfortunately, everything Daniel may have picked up from his clone was all true, unless his duplicate had the foresight to fib even a little which was...unlikely, considering his/her behavior. Not much of a fibber, that one! It wasn't helped by the fact Daniel hadn't come out with what, exactly, he knew. Maybe it was too much for a human's mind to handle? It would explain the questions. Maybe he had only flashes. that feel of his first fish fingers and custard.

Or there was also Gallifrey burning under him and -- hm, right, not a particular memory he would wish on anyone.

Deciding that the door was stable and not likely to move on them just yet, the Doctor fiddled with it. It hissed open, blasting Daniel and him with a jet of warm, humid air, and the distinct smell of dirty wet socks. The Wardrobe hasn't fared very well, whoever had intruded their way this deep in. It smelled downright awful, as if someone had dunked the entire Wardrobe in swamp water and then didn't leave it to properly dry. A slow trail of muddy water seeped toward them across the floor, the Doctor lifting his foot gingerly, like a cat. His boot came up soggy.

"Mind your footing!"

The Doctor pushed on into the Wardrobe, shining his sonic around for light. The lights flickered on and off now, his sonic buzzing green against bits and pieces of clothing. Most of it was a lost cause, but some of it was miraculously still dry.

[hi_there_aliens]

Daniel was determined not to give in and just tell the Doctor what he wanted, because so far, whenever he had played nice and tried it the normal way, it felt like a one way street of information. The Doctor usually went off on tangents or got distracted. Sometimes it was justified. Asking questions when they were getting shot at probably wasn't the best time or place for it, but Daniel would argue it was always a good time to ask questions. Sometimes, however, it felt like the Doctor looked for any excuse to avoid an awkward question. Now that Daniel, for once, had the upper hand, the Doctor was actually answering some questions.

Kind of.

"Must be the filthy Ancient Egyptian," Daniel muttered under his breath. He didn't think he was psychic, and definitely not with a preference to going brain to brain with otters.

Just a few bad days? How was wiping out the Racnoss and her children, or the destruction of that planet just a bad day? Daniel couldn't think of any universe or situation where that could qualify as just an inconvenience. He knew the Doctor was trying to play it off as less worse than it actually was, for whatever reason, but it felt disrespectful, like he was diminishing those events. If those memories were his, it went to follow that the sense of loss, of loneliness, was the Doctor's too. He was lying.

Finally, something else happened outside of the twine. Daniel was right behind the Doctor when the door opened, perfectly timed to to get a faceful of humid, heavy feeling air and worse, the smell of a locker room. His nose crinkled. It smelled ripe, even for the SGC's worst locker room. Daniel had to take a moment to gather himself. It's a swamp planet, he told himself. Just another swamp planet. You'll get used to it. Give it time.

More time than that. Daniel waited a little longer, ignored what the Doctor said, and found that this time the smell was slightly less offensive. Finally as ready as he could get, Daniel stepped in... right into something that smelled like an armpit and old cat and strangely enough, fabric softener. His leg sunk into some sort of sludge that went up to mid-calf.

"Oh God," Daniel looked down. His face crumpled as he pulled his foot out of a bog made of socks, weeds (he hoped those were weeds and not remnants of wigs and soggy tissues) and the dirtiest water he'd ever seen. It wasn't a distinction Daniel made lightly. He'd been on a lot of planets for a human.

The first question to come to mind was, 'Where are we'? Or 'What just happened?' 'Why do you have a swamp in your closet?'' Why do you need so many clothes?' What Daniel actually said was, "So these are your memories then. Why did you destroy the red planet?"

[makeherblue]

The Doctor waded in a few feet ahead of Daniel. He almost missed his step at the question, giving a surprised splash as he kicked and stubbed his toe on something out of sight.

"What?" The Doctor's tone was sharper than he intended, his toe stinging as he turned, that light reflecting off the surface of the bog water rising up to his knees now. "Red planet?"

The look he gave Daniel for the barest of nanoseconds was haunted. He recovered quickly, making a show of nursing his toe and muttering something about needing new boots and socks and quite possibly a few other things as he waded in deeper and wished that Daniel didn't have to be so-so stubborn!. The water, thankfully, seemed to stop at around mid-thigh, a soupy kind of sludge that Daniel Jackson was completely right about smelling like bogs and month old laundry. The Doctor paused at what he assumed was a cupboard lying face down in the soup, testing it with his foot. Didn't squish down too much and it was their next best thing to dry land.

"Well," the Doctor said, after clambering aboard, his trousers and boots a lost cause. He turned to help Daniel up. "I'm sure you know how these things go. Complicated, messy, loads of reasons. Something had to be done. Now's hardly the time for life stories, Daniel Jackson."

He didn't look very inclined to go into too many more details. It might've happened several lifetimes ago, but he thought he'd need a few more before he could fully come to terms with Gallifrey. That crushing loneliness his clone had broadcasted to anyone and everyone? Still there, in a way, and he preferred to get through his days by not obsessing about what he could, should (and didn't) do. The Doctor shifted his weight on the cupboard squishing in the bog, turning on the spot and shading his eyes, trying to look for any other doors.

Something splashed in the distance, a far away plop.

[hi_there_aliens]

The Doctor swiveled on a dime. Daniel could see it in his eyes, something sharp, hardened and something else, something empty. Taken aback, Daniel stared into them. You couldn't fake or hide a reaction like his surprise. No matter how quickly the Doctor covered it up, all down to business, swamp surveying, and complaining about his boots, Daniel had actually startled him. He didn't say much, but he didn't have to. What the Doctor did say was plenty, enough for anyone to read between the lines.

"Yeah, I guess so," Daniel said reluctantly. No, not really. There was a difference between having to pick up a gun and defend yourself and blowing up an entire planet. A big, big, big difference. He got the feeling that this was the most he was going to get out of the Doctor on the subject. At least it was more than he started with.

Taking the Doctor's hand, Daniel scrambled up onto the cupboard, profoundly grateful that the water level hadn't risen to the point that it made the thing float. It might be a losing battle, but Daniel was determined not to take a dunk in the murky water if he could help it. Even if his legs were soaked. It was probably going to smell for days.

Daniel caught the faint plop a second after the Doctor. His head snapped over to look. Maybe something had fallen off a hanger. Or maybe the TARDIS decided it might as well conjure up alligators to go with the bog. The archaeologist pulled his legs all the way onto the dresser. "Uh, what was that?"

[makeherblue]

The Doctor adjusted his footing, shifting his boots from side to side as the cupboard squelched under their combined weight. It sank another centimeter.

"I don't think it's a crocodile..." The Doctor listened again. "Probably not. Not that you'd hear a crocodile. They're quite...sneaky."

Another splash, this time coming closer. The Doctor decided that Daniel had the right idea keeping his arms and legs away from the edge of the cupboard. The lighting flickered again overhead as the Wardrobe groaned around them, wafting that horrid stench of wrong all over because it, like the rest of the TARDIS, knew this wasn't right at all. The splashing suddenly sounded off even closer, frantic, as if what was out there saw them and was coming right at the two. The Doctor tensed, prepared to advise Daniel to Abandon Ship (or Abandon Cupboard) and that as when --

That otter surfaced right at Daniel's feet. It twitched those whiskers at him, beady black eyes glittering in the light.

"Ah!" The Doctor suddenly broke out into a relieved grin. "Your otter friend! I was wondering where he got to! Loads better than a crocodile!"

As if to prove his point, the otter slithered out of the water with a deft flick of his otter tail and curled around Daniel's feet.

[hi_there_aliens]

Yes, Daniel did actually know something about crocodiles, you know, all that time spent in Egypt.

He had been so prepared to jump back for the door that Daniel almost jerked to his feet on reflex alone when something landed on the cupboard. He almost pitched off the cupboard anyway. It wasn't an alligator. It wasn't a crocodile or a shark or a raging hippo or whatever could come out of the Doctor's overgrown wardrobe. It was the same otter from before. How it got into the TARDIS and how it tracked him down was anyone's guess.

Daniel looked down at the otter. He looked back at the Doctor, who had this look on his face like he was a proud grandparent. He looked back the otter which was curled around his feet like it owned him. It also looked like a soggy mess. Daniel, slowly, so it wouldn't startle, reached over and began picking various weeds, threads, and lace off it. Then he began gently scratching the moss and soggy tissues off it. The otter seemed to like it, because it made a purring grunt and leaned into his hand.

"I think he likes me..." Daniel said, gently scratching behind the ears. It huddled closer to him. Oh boy. It seemed to have chosen him. Was it going to follow him around like a lost duck? The archaeologist looked up at the Doctor. "Doctor, I don't know how to take care of a wild otter."