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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Clara was in the middle of fearing for her life and whether or not the recently regenerated Doctor would be able to remember how to fly the TARDIS when something incredibly odd happened. With no real explanation as to how or why, she found herself standing right in the middle of a very different console room. Her eyes were already wide thanks to the shock the past several minutes had put her through, and this definitely wasn't helping matters any. Especially not when she saw a man she didn't recognize all that well standing at the console.

"Doctor?"

Who else could it be? Besides, she thinks his face is a bit familiar. Still, she couldn't help but ask his name cautiously, looking very close to a skittish animal that wanted nothing more than to run away.

"It is you, isn't it?"

Something certainly wasn't right. There was a girl, in his TARDIS. A girl who hadn't been there before, and more importantly, a girl who he'd never seen before in all his lives.

"Well, I should hope that I'm me. It would be rather inconvenient if I turned out to be someone else instead, wouldn't it?" The Doctor said softly, drumming his fingers on the edge of the console as he inspected the girl. Human, by the looks of her, and probably from sometime in early 21st Century. "Although much more important, I would think, is who are you, and what are you doing in my TARDIS? Do I know you?"

She stared, and then stared some more. And despite looking dangerously close to crying, she managed a laugh. "Oh, you're definitely you. Good to know." That little bit of laughter bubbled over into something louder and more relieved, because he's not the Doctor she knew, but at the same time he still was. Time Lords were weird like that, she supposed.

"Names, though. That ought to be a thing, you're right. I'm Clara, Clara Oswald. I travel with you when your face is a bit different, and it just so happens I was in his TARDIS before somehow ending up on this one."

There was a shrug of her shoulders, before she began to move in closer to the console, eyes looking things over. She couldn't really provide much of an explanation as to how she got here, because she had no idea herself. Just like she had no idea how to get back to her Doctor. In an effort to distract herself from that, she brushes a finger along the top of a glowing something or another. It might've been a button, for all she knew.

Well, now this was awkward. The Doctor coughed politely, since she was really taking her time to stare at him, really. He wondered just why she looked so upset. Surely his appearance wasn't that horrible to look at?

"Names are a thing, yes," the Doctor said, with a quick laugh. "Well then, Miss Clara Osward, my pleasure to meet you. Although I'm afraid that your appearance in my TARDIS is rather worrying. If you are a companion of my future self, then...well, I'm afraid you just simply shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be crossing over into my timeline, not like this, not unless something has gone very, very wrong. Now, do you remem...stop that!"

The Doctor darted over, shooing her fingers away from the controls. "No no no, don't touch, don't touch!"

With a slight scowl, she swatted at his hands, not liking being told what to do. But his upset at her touching things was so familiar, that she couldn't help but smile. She ducked her head though, not wanting him to see it. It left her grateful that bangs and hair fall down over her eyes, she was provided with a shield of sorts to casually peek through and try and catch better glimpses of him now that he's in close.

"'Fraid I make it a habit of being impossible. Crossing over into timelines is one of my specialties."

There was a pause, and her head tipped off to the side, hair falling away from her face so she could look up at him better. "Bit of a question. Where're we headed to...exactly?"

She hoped he liked how easily she slipped in that we. If he's the Doctor, and she was his future self's companion, obviously it was her job to escort him on an adventure or two.

The Doctor inspected the button closely, just to make certain that she hadn't pressed it. With Time acting as strange as it is, sending companions out of the times they were supposed to be in, now was definitely not the time for random button-pressing.

Well, not the time for random button-pressing by anyone who wasn't him, that is.

"Oh, a specialty, is it? Care to tell me how this specialty of yours works? Really, I would love to know how you've managed it," the Doctor said, in a pleasant conversation tone that also quite clearly suggested that he hadn't quite decided what to make of Clara just yet. "As for where we are headed...well, I haven't decided yet. Your arrival interrupted me."

And odd, wasn't it, that even though he wasn't quite sure of her yet he'd still ended up using that "we" as well.

"Interrupted for a few seconds, maybe. You're free to press all the buttons you like," she points out with a scoff, gesturing with a wide sweep to the console. "And I can't tell you how anything I've done works, because spoilers. Future you would flail to death if he knew I told you anything."

Except future him is now a brand new future him, and she has no idea if that Doctor was into being weird and flail-y. Saddened by the realization, she bit at her lip and forced a smile.

"Anyway, where we're going now is more important than where I've been."

"Yes, of course, the web of time..." the Doctor mused. "Tricky, very tricky. You can't tell me how you got here without damaging the very fabric of time itself, and I can't tell if it would be safe to fly the TARDIS without knowing how, exactly, you did get here."

And right now, even if Clara did tell him, he had no intention of flying the TARDIS anywhere. Not yet.

"Actually, there's another question. One that's much more important than where we're going. Clara, why are you so upset?" the Doctor said gently.

Edited 2014-01-10 09:32 (UTC)

"Right before I ended up here, I realized something. All things end, and goodbye isn't always what you want it to be." It was cryptic with enough hint as to what she might be talking about due to the emotion behind it. But that was all she said about her situation back on her Doctor's TARDIS, before she began to walk in a circle around the console.

When she had walked around one complete time, she headed off toward the hallway, attempting to peek around and see if things were still the same further inside as well. She wondered if the pool was in the same place, anyway.

Cryptic enough to refer to a few different things, in fact. Perhaps she was leaving the TARDIS, walking away from him, for some unknown reason that made her unhappy. Perhaps he had died and regenerated. Perhaps he had died truly died, with no more lives left. He didn't know, and couldn't know.

He followed her, silently, as she started her way down the hallway, standing close (much too close, he always tended to stand much too close to people). But before she could get anywhere, he spoke.

"Yes. Everything ends, Clara. Everything changes, and decays, and wears down. There are no contants, not in this universe. And that's painful, I know, believe me, I know. But isn't it beautiful, too? Isn't it an amazing, wonderful thing? If nothing can change, if nothing can end, then there can be nothing that is new, nothing that is different, nothing than can grow. You may not be able to see it yet, but perhaps from this...this end, whatever it is, there will come something new, and precious."

Who's that knocking on my TARDIS?

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