Spring Cleaning, Round 2 [Backdated to just after podpop]

[fantastix]

Who: The Doctors, their assistants and friends, some visitors [Open], and the Master.
Where: The TARDIS, the blue police box located in the Hangar.
Summary: Somebody's made a mess of the old ship. The Doctors are very unhappy. Time to dig in and clean up! Also, there's some necessary hashing-out of titles and ownership between three men who happen to be the same person. And a bit of a problem arises...
Warnings: Possibly mild swearing on Nine's part.


The Doctor and his immediate successor with the long coat had run straight from the Observation Deck when they'd learned where the TARDIS was and gotten their bearings. They'd been whisked through the uncomfortable transport tubes, spilled into an arsenal of ships, and been left to search. Luckily, as diminished as their abilities were, they could still sense the old girl. It wasn't long before she was found.

They wasted no time in opening the door, winding up in a console room that could never fit inside the seemingly small exterior of the police box without some serious dimensional shifting. It was a wide space, well-lit, but definitely not the room the two new arrivals were used to.

Here, they'd finally find this other Doctor the other crew members have told them so much about. And with any luck, they'll have some answers too.

Comments

[makeherblue]

Now that was a name - Mer Eleven had a bit of a ring to it with that Mer tacked on the front, the Doctor deciding Eleven wasn't such a terrible name after all if you could keep tacking on names and adjectives to it. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more open he was to the whole idea of it because it opened up all sorts of creative possibilities. Well-done, Gerald. You've made the Doctor reconsider the inconvenience of having a new name.

The Doctor's opinion of Gerald rose once again as he listened to his take on the Sensoriums. That was surprisingly observant of him!

"Good man," the Doctor beamed at Gerald. He agreed on just about everything about the Sensoriums except: "The food, now. Even I'd say the fantasy food in the Sensoriums is better than the real thing here."

No offense, Stacy, except that was fibbing just a little. The slop was offensively bland and if Gerald had any better suggestions, the Doctor was all ears - or he would have been, if he'd had the foresight to regenerate with more. Anyway, you don't even need places to wear a bowtie - anywhere and anywhere is all you need, basically.

[theprophet]

Tarrant lived to serve. Okay, no he didn't. However, he did return the Doctor's smile with one of this own. "It leaves much to be desired, I know. If you're a fan of wine, however, I may be able to ease the unpleasantness a little. The ship apparently abducted an old living space of mine while it was plucking us all out of the ether, and the cellar is still intact."

Of course, it wouldn't be for free. But the Doctor could probably afford the price Tarrant was going to ask.

"Unfortunate, but soldiers can't choose their rations." And now Tarrant's smile turned slightly sardonic. He didn't like being drafted. Or manipulated. And it appeared that the Daligig were doing both.

[makeherblue]

You know, a sensible man like this would probably get on with Barbara. They could have parties or human-y things where they'd be sensible at each other. Just an idea.

"Probably have to pass on the wine bit, but thanks." Try as he might, the Doctor simply wasn't a fan of wine. Horrible taste. Pretty much something he couldn't spit out fast enough, even if he was trying to be polite and try it in case it suddenly changed since the last time he had the stuff.

He studied Gerald as his smile turned a bit more biting. Soldiers. He supposed that was what the Daligig and Stacy saw them, what with the whole nasty business with the Ohm and the missions.

"Probably need to talk to the Daligig about this draft," the Doctor glanced over at Gerald. "Big interdimensional war with bugs, you think plucking people at random would be inefficiebt."

[theprophet]

Eleven's loss! Tarrant would just have to donate his share to Eva.

"Yes. I heard they were on board recently. Though they'd left before my arrival here." A pity. He might have gotten some real information out of them, whether they'd have liked it or not. True Night was his time, his domain. And aboard this ship, it seemed, it was always True Night.

"But supposedly, we haven't been randomly chosen. Isn't that the story? Only we can save the multiverse." Tarrant's tone was a little dry here. Sticking his neck out for a collection of worlds he had nothing to do with? Not really his style. Although he was rather gratified to be alive.

[makeherblue]

Eva might like that. In fact she really might like that.

"That's the story, yeah." The Doctor had to say that randomly choosing was a bit of a stretch. From what he'd seen, there were loads of crew who weren't qualified for anything, which might be the point if it were up to him -- sometimes it was the "unqualified" that were most qualified, in his opinion, and some of the most amazing, wonderful things were because of that different perspective.

Of course he was biased toward that sort of thing.

"How are you on multiverses, anyway? Time travel? Parellel dimensions?" Couldn't hurt to ask. Asking if he knew anything about sentient ships and talking to them was on the tip of the Doctor's tongue.

[theprophet]

She probably would.

The unqualified probably had their advantages and all, but Tarrant preferred tried and tested allies. Ones that weren't liable to choke on you at the worst possible moment. Allies who could be predicted. Or bought, if necessary. Tarrant had a dim view of humanity.

"Learning more every day. And I suppose it's a topic with which you're intimately familiar." After all, they'd all had to take the crash course, hadn't they?

[makeherblue]

Ah, so hardly a working professional on the matter then; bit of a stretch to assume, the Doctor supposed, but it (usually) didn't hurt to ask anyway. Most of the time.

"Usually intimately familiar with. Enough to tell you that all of this," he waved a monkey wrench at the Hanger, as if to encompass Everything In the Bleed, "is amazing because we haven't imploded yet just from the sheer weight of the paradoxes. Interesting stuff!"

Interesting and baffling and the fact it was even a smidgen baffling made it loop back into Interesting again, like an ouroboros. The Doctor passed the wrench to Gerald here, deciding that if he was going to stand there and not get back to snooping that he might as well make himself useful and help him with the exterior repairs. The Doctor dropped down into a crouch next to the base of the TARDIS.

[theprophet]

"So I hear," Tarrant said, eyeing the direction of the Hangar thoughtfully. He took the wrench politely, but did not begin wrenching things. Rather, he watched the Doctor, as if curious as to what antics he might be getting up to now.

He could snoop later. Well, he was sort of snooping now just by being here. "Do you live here alone?"

[makeherblue]

Gerald, there was a way to be wrenching and that wasn't it, so maybe he better throw in Wrenching Lessons in later. Just in case.

The Doctor fiddled with what looked like a splinter coming off the side of the TARDIS, working at it expertly and by expertly, it was probably safe to say as if you've never seen it before. "The TARDIS? Not recently, no. Sometimes I've friends over. Only so much you can get done with yourself and the library to talk to!"

Well, one of the libraries. The other one seemed to think he was on the menu but if it came down to it, it really preferred juicy humans like Gerald here, still not wrenching away.

[theprophet]

Tarrant turned the wrench over in his hands, examining the smoothness of the metal. But sadly, he was still not wrenching anything.

So the Doctor was a resident of the TARDIS. But it was the second part of what he'd said that caught Tarrant's attention. "A library? More or less extensive than the ship's Media Library?"

Call him old-fashioned, but Tarrant preferred paper books to electronic ones. He was even willing to put up with a little danger, if it was in pursuit of something worthwhile.

[makeherblue]

Maybe it wasn't in his genetics, a predisposition for wrenching or anything that even looked a teeny-tiny bit like wrenching. And that was the Doctor being charitable, too. It was almost as painful as watching Jamie trying to twiddle with electronics.

"Could be! I haven't had a chance to catalog it since the last time and I'm not quite sure where the library's got to by now," The Doctor said with a sigh. It had to be several months, right? Time was wibbly even by wibbly standards on Stacy and even he wasn't sure anymore. Maybe he ought to give up being a Time Lord -- not much good if you couldn't even tell basic Time! "Anything in specific you're looking for? I could check."

Hopefully when the library was napping or they had enough Doctors to get it under control. Once he was sure it was safe enough, he could always invite Gerald to have a look himself. He did have that look about him of a man who would appreciate books and loads of them!

[theprophet]

Tarrant, no doubt, came from a long line of people who Did Not Wrench. He didn't even look interested in trying.

"I'm not looking for any information in particular, unless it concerns our current situation with the Ohm and Daligig. But I do enjoy reading. And research. And I expect that the amount of information at our collective fingertips now is... well, virtually without limit." And for someone as hungry for knowledge as Tarrant, that was an enticing prospect indeed.

"To be honest, I hardly even know where to start." Well, that was half-true. Technological advances, for example, were a given. But should he begin with experiments on timeflow on the ship? Genetic experiments with the flora and fauna? So very many options.

[makeherblue]

It was downright shameful. The Doctor would just have to wrench enough for the both of them to make up for Gerald.

"Afraid I won't have any information on those two," the Doctor said. He might be a Time Lord, but he hadn't ever been to this specific dimension with the Daligig and they hadn't mentioned the Ohm back on Gallifrey, when it was still around. "I'd say virtually-without-limit is accurate, yeah. Half the fun I'd think, not knowing where to start."

He beamed at Gerald, trying very hard to ignore his Non-Wrenching. Just like Jamie had a paradox over his shoulder, Gerald had a cloud of Inability to Wrench At All. He was probably rubbish at twiddling too. Still, he had just said he enjoyed reading and that was always a good start.

[theprophet]

"Unfortunate," said Tarrant, though he hadn't really been expecting otherwise. That would have been much too easy. His tone was a little disappointed, though. He would have thought that a man with a nice library like the Doctor's would have been a little more all-encompassing in the type of books he'd chosen to acquire. Dramatic sigh.

"But I suppose you're right. The pursuit of knowledge can be as rewarding as the end result. If not more so." Tarrant was a pretty fair hand at pursuit himself. In a manner of speaking.

[makeherblue]

The Doctor had to agree: definitely unfortunate, but he liked to think of it as a challenge to add information on both instead of focusing on the negatives. Besides, it wasn't often you had the opportunity to see different dimensions these days.

"Oh yes! Very! You know, you're very good for a human," the Doctor sounded properly impressed. "Good head on those shoulders."

[theprophet]

Well. It had been quite some time since anyone had called him human. He smiled. "And you're not a human? Thank you for the compliment, all the same. People don't always appreciate what I have to say."

[makeherblue]

"Oh no. No, no, not this time at least. Long story." Depending on your version, Gerald could either get ghost snakes or watches and scarecrows - take your pick. The Doctor waved his hand as if he's swatting away at a fly. "Why? You seem intelligent, reasonable. Although I suppose sometimes there's such a thing as too reasonable..."

The Doctor trailed off, inspecting Gerald and maybe measuring him up to Rory's Reasonable Scale, which is probably a 10 as in Excessive Reasonableness.

[theprophet]

Tarrant gave the Doctor a slight shrug of the shoulders. "Who can say? Maybe they found me too reasonable, as you said. Or maybe not reasonable enough. People can be very difficult to please. Personally, I'd settle for some reliable help."

He'd note the Doctor's not-so-helpful answer for later.

Would it be cool if we wrapped this up in a bit? :3

[makeherblue]

The Doctor was finding it difficult to understand why people wouldn't like Gerald: he seemed just that level of reasonable to him himself and either he was just that good or he was good at giving all the right answers. Still, he had a point. Reliable help was always hard to come by, whether you were on Earth or trying to not get shot by some space pirates or even some space farmers with a bad first impression.

"There's bound to be some on the ship. You can't go wrong with a Scot, I've found."

we can wrap now if you like

[theprophet]

Tarrant smiled. "I'll keep that in mind." Watch out, Jamie.