flowerbox | Who's that knocking on my TARDIS?

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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Sarah Jane had been taking K-9 out for a walk in the back garden (he liked the fresh air, although she wasn't sure why; it wasn't as if he could tell the difference, being a robot) when he'd piped up with some nonsense about a temporal anomaly, and then, suddenly, she'd found herself somewhere else.

She peered around at her new surroundings - architecture not entirely unlike that of a Gothic cathedral - and realised where she was upon seeing what had to be the central column of the TARDIS. It looked different, but if the Doctor could change the way he looked, then why couldn't he change the TARDIS?

"Doctor?" Sarah Jane walked around the console, trailing her fingertips over the surface, and nearly bumped right into him - both of them, actually, though she didn't know that the younger one was the Doctor. "What on Earth is going on here? And who's he?" She tilted her head up to look at the man she'd almost run into; his velvet frock coat reminded her somewhat of the first Doctor she'd met.

Ah, now that was a familiar face. And a worrying one, come to think of it. Bad enough that he'd been dragged into some strange TARDIS, but last he'd seen of Sarah he'd left her behind, not entirely by choice. Of course, it had all proven just as well in the end, but still. Whatever had brought him here was more widespread then he'd thought, if it was dragging people other then him into the madness.

"Ah, well, I rather think he's me."

One he's not yet been, but this is his TARDIS, he's almost certain. There aren't many like her still in operation these days, and he knows his habits when he sees them (those jelly babies are not at all well-hidden, and he's only not taken one because he's got his own supply).

"We aren't really supposed to be here, you see. Timing malfunction."

"Ow! Excuse me, I was standing...Sarah Jane? Sarah Jane!" The Doctor laughed, looking at Sarah Jane with delight. He hadn't seen her fact in several lifetimes! "How are you? Are you well? I hope you didn't have any trouble with arriving here, although we do need to sort out the problem of why you are here in the first place..."

First his previous incarnation, and now Sarah Jane as well? This mystery was growing by the minute.

"Yes, you're quite right Doctor. On all accounts, by the looks of it. But as for what's causing the timing malfunction, I honestly haven't the faintest idea..."

Edited 2014-01-11 05:24 (UTC)

"You left me!" she accused the Doctor - both of them, actually. "In Scotland! And you never came back!" She'd been afraid that the Doctor had died for good, not just regenerated again, and she'd been heartbroken for awhile - up till he'd left her K-9. Now she was just annoyed with him (and, quite frankly, a little hurt).

"Can you have two of you in the same place simultaneously? Shouldn't that cause, I don't know, some sort of problem?" Sarah frowned in confusion. It didn't make sense to her, but maybe that sort of thing was relatively common amongst Time Lords.

"Ah. Not South Croyden, then."

He doesn't deny that he left her, though. He has, and as the one of them most recently responsible it is rather his fault. Not the leaving her in the wrong place - that's the TARDIS, most likely (he's sure he'd set the coordinates right - but the leaving her at all.

"I'm terrible sorry, Sarah. It's only I couldn't have taken you to Gallifrey. Not even if I'd wanted to. You see, most of the Time Lords aren't like me. Not at all."

Besides, he still remembers the last time he'd taken his companions home with him, and he can't - couldn't - inflict that on Sarah. Not after seeing their memories of him erased. This way has been harder, yes, and he won't deny that she might have been helpful, with all that he'd had to put up with. But no, it had seemed like the best option, for all that there have been regrets. But she remembers him, and that has to be a good start.

It's only belatedly that he remembers the other question at all.

"Oh no, it's a paradox just being here. But we'll figure something out."

Edited 2014-01-11 06:41 (UTC)

"Oh dear," said the Doctor, looking maybe just a little bit bashful about getting the location so wrong. Although really, it could have been worse. "Did I at least get the date right?"

Embarrassing enough to drop her off in the wrong place; even worse to find he'd put her in the wrong time all-together.

And if his previous self was going to explain their reasoning, he certainly wasn't going to interrupt. The older Doctor was all too happy to just bypass that issue entirely and talk about their current temporal issues instead.

"We're not supposed to be in the same place, no. The laws of Time are supposed to prevent this sort of thing, and yet it does seem to end up happening anyway, doesn't it?"

"Not South Croydon at all!" she huffed. "Though you did at least land in the right year, yes. That still didn't make it any easier to ring Aunt Lavinia and try to explain to her how I'd ended up in Scotland without any money!" She probably should have phoned the Brigadier instead, she thought wryly, but she hadn't exactly thought of that at the time.

"And do you normally have people just sort of...turning up in the middle of your TARDIS like this?" Sarah Jane asked, hands on her hips. "It seems to me like you've got all sorts of problems right now." Which, all right, was pointing out the obvious a bit.

Well, no, Scotland wouldn't have been. But it had worked out, clearly enough, although the Brigadier probably would have been the better choice to call. At least the Brigidier would have understand an explanation that begin and end with a mention of him, regardless of which face he happened to have at the time. But that's neither here nor there at the moment. It wasn't him making the call and so he offers a shrug as if to say that any phone-related awkwardness isn't something he could have done anything about.

The question of people randomly entering the TARDIS, on the other hand, is one that he can answer.

"That's why it's so interesting. We shouldn't have been able to get in. But here we are. And it's not my TARDIS. It's his."

He... may be splitting hairs a little, but still. It's a good point to make, and he's not sure he would ever want this much room around the console itself. It's all very grand, yes, but he's not entirely certain a console room needs to be.

"Yes, quite right Doctor," he said with a small cough, all too happy to move on from the subject of leaving Sarah Jane behind.

"But what's worrying me is that the two of you haven't arrived together. My past self shouldn't be materialising here, yes, but that wort of thing isn't exactly without precedent, I'm afraid. But you, Sarah Jane - you weren't with my younger self, you weren't even in the TARDIS at all, and yet you're here. You both have been pulled here, by some force or power, from completely different times and locations."

Who's that knocking on my TARDIS?

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