Who's that knocking on my TARDIS?

[whatifigetbored]

Through all of time and space, the TARDIS flew. On the outside; a blue police box, on the inside; a console room of wood and steel and candles, with buttons and glowing lights all coming together to make a kind of gothic steampunk fantasy.

For the Doctor, this was home.

"Well?" he said, almost absentmindedly fiddling with the switches and the controls on the console. "Where to next, hmm? The reign of Emperor Taizong? The fifth age of the New Savannah? Or maybe...Galsec Seven? What do you think?"

The console's central column pulsed slightly.

"Oh, don't look at me like that, old girl. You can't blame me for a moment of indecision, can you? Billions upon billions of worlds, an untold number of people and places and peculiarities to see...it's a wonder I ever manage to get anywhere at all, with so much to choose from!"

The glow of the TARDIS, quite possibly, took on a slightly pointed edge.

"Oh alright, alright, if you insist! Let's go...oh. Now that's not right."

[[ooc: Okay, the idea here is that any characters tagging in are suddenly arriving in the TARDIS. How they do is up do you: they could just walk in the door, they could just suddenly materialise with no added explanation, they could have been hiding in the swimming pool all this time and have only just decided to show themselves - whatever you like! You can keep it simple or make it some complicated conspiracy, whatever takes your fantasy.

Also, if you need some references - the inside of Eight's TARDIS basically looks like this, and Eight himself looks like this.]]

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[whatifigetbored]

"But that's not right, even a working manipulator couldn't get inside the TARDIS, a damaged one wouldn't even have a hope of...oh no." The Doctor stopped, staring at the man like he was only just seeing him. Really seeing him, for what he truly was.

And the Doctor didn't like what he saw.

The man wasn't just a Time Agent, he was a fixed point, a fact, and that was wrong, so very wrong. "It's not just the fact that you're here that's not right is it? It's you, you're not right." And with that the Doctor was grabbing the man by the arm (but oh, that felt so wrong too, didn't it), and pulling him over towards the TARDIS door. "Come on then, out you go, time for you to leave."

[faceofbeau]

Nope. Didn't feel any better hearing it even from a Doctor who didn't know him yet. The pained grimace was easily hidden beneath a cheerful laugh though, paired with an arched eyebrow as he tugged his arm away from the Time Lord. Because while he wasn't exactly happy to be here- wrong timeline, wrong Doctor, far too much potential for screwing up, and far too far away from his team who'd been expecting to see him again in a week- he had no idea where and when 'here' was, and getting dumped off with his still clearly malfunctioning wriststrap?

"Geez Doc, harsh. Not even a hi, hello, do you want a lift to where you were trying to get?" No, it was best to get out as soon as possible, but he didn't fancy being stuck in the wrong century and sector of space. Too far backward and he'd had to wait, too far forward and- he'd had to wait again, until he could lay hands on a means of going back. "Don't worry, I don't want to be here anymore than you want me here, but when and where is 'here?'"

[whatifigetbored]

With a sigh, the Doctor stopped. Where he was was....well. A long way from where the man wanted to be, and he couldn't just toss even a human fixed point out so far from home.

"Fine. Fine! Cardiff 2009, was it?" Letting go of the man, the Doctor moved back to the console, fiddling with the controls. "We'll go there, and then you will leave, and then you will never set foot in my TARDIS again. Do we have a deal?"

The Doctor didn't wait for an agreement; the TARDIS launched into flight. He continued to fiddle with the controls, even though there was really no need anymore - but being busy with the console meant that he didn't have to look at all of that...wrongness. "And would you care to tell me how you know who I am?"

[faceofbeau]

The ironic thought that the Doctor had no idea how wrong he was floated through Jack's mind before he shut it down, because damned if he really didn't want to think about the entire thing anyway. It was bad enough that the first time the Doctor had seen him after his first death, he'd run, but to be ordered out and banned now? It bore reminding himself that this wasn't his Doctor, either of them, and this version of the man didn't know him, didn't have any reason to want to look past the 'wrongness' of what Jack was. Instead of letting it bother him, Jack grabbed onto one of the support struts- and wasn't that an interesting feature, so different from the look of the TARDIS he remembered- as the Doctor manned the controls, hoping that they weren't about to have a repeated of when the TARDIS had run to the end of the universe from him.

"I'd love to, but I'd rather not risk my past by telling you your future. You can call me Captain James Harper and we'll leave it at that."

[whatifigetbored]

"Very well then, Captain James Harper. We'll leave it at that, and we'll leave you...oh, no no no no no."

And then, almost as if Jack's worries about being taken to the end of the universe had jinxed it, the TARDIS's flight suddenly shifted, moving erratically through the vortex instead of to Cardiff, like she was supposed to. Her usual groaning noise shifted, mutating into something that sounded rather more unhealthy.

The Doctor darted around the consol, frantically flicking switches and pressing at buttons, trying to get the TARDIS back on track again. "Come on old girl, what's wrong? Hey? What's with you? Don't be like that, I know you don't like the Captain, but if you'll just get us to Cardiff, we can set him off, and then you won't have to go about carrying any more fixed points, I promise..."

[faceofbeau]

Jack's grip on the strut tightened as the old girl began to shake, and it was suddenly a lot harder to hide the grimace. So, just like the younger Doctor, the younger TARDIS was no longer used to him, trying to buck him off not for the first time. The only consolation was that at least this time, he wasn't clinging to the outside of the ship: death by Time Vortex was not a death he wanted to repeat any time soon. And while he wanted to help, instincts itched to go to the controls to lend a hand, he knew better, especially with the Doctor already so wary of him.

"I'll take anywhere on the planet, if you can manage it, in 2009 or shortly before," he offered. Anything within reason, where he could either wait it out, or call the team and let him know he was on his way.

[whatifigetbored]

Except this time, Jack wasn't hanging on the outside of the TARDIS, he was inside her - and not even flying to the end of the universe could shake Jack off.

"But I can't; I can't even land on any planet at all, let alone the Earth," the Doctor said, frustrated and worried and very concerned, all at once. "She's tearing through the Vortex, with no rhyme nor reason, and I can't get her to stop."

And yet he kept working at the controls, hoping that something would work. Finally, he shot a quick, angry look at Jack - a very quick look, for looking at the man still felt like ants under his skin - "It's you. You're a fixed point, an impossibility, and she doesn't want to be carrying you...and yet here you are, and she can't shake you off."