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I contort uncomfortably in the control room, navigating my way around some wires, trying to trace them back to their origin to find the source of the issue. One of the key navigation monitors had lost signal a day ago for an unknown reason. It wasn’t urgent, our course to Erid hadn’t changed for months, but I had slept terribly the previous night stressing about it and the miniscule possibility that I would miss an alert, and we’d go hurtling off through deep space en route to nowhere and with no hope of return. If for nothing more than peace of mind, I was keen to get it working again.
Maybe it was some sort of corrosion? Unlikely. These wires were coated in Teflon which could hold up to almost anything, and they weren’t doing much just sitting behind the displays. Mind you, when Rocky’s atmosphere breached into the control room back at Tau Ceti, the heat and corrosive compounds from his atmosphere could have done some damage that’s been stewing for a while. Ugh. If that’s the case, this is probably only the beginning of a host of issues and forthcoming headaches. It’s alright. If I did find corrosion and we needed to replace a bunch of wiring, Rocky could whip up some replacements lickety-split.
Plus, if nothing else it’d be nice to have something actually productive to do. It’d been mostly smooth sailing for ages, which of course I won’t be complaining about, we’d definitely had our fair share of drama for one lifetime but between my tragically slow Eridian language progress and countless hours of co-op minesweeper, we were both begging for something to shake up our routine even minorly.
Headtorch tightly around my head, I lean back at an awkward forty-five-degree angle with the curved wall of the ship, craning my neck up behind the malfunctioning display. My left arm pushed the display forward a little, careful not to damage the adjustable brackets connecting it to the wall, my right arm rummages near-blindly through the maze of cables to find the source of the signal loss.
“Grace, what's wrong?” I hear from the translator nearby. I probably could’ve translated that much myself at this point, but I still kept the translator on for ease for the time being.
“What?” I yell. I usually wouldn’t since he can hear me anyway, but being behind the screen like this makes me feel like I need to. “Nothing’s wrong, what makes you say–“ I hear it. It was too quiet before, but it was getting louder, fast. An awful cacophony that could only be likened to a combination of a rusty ball bearing grinding against tarmac, an old ceiling fan and a car with its park brakes on being pushed along a road.
The shock of the sudden, alarming sound makes me jump. I forget I’m surrounded by screens and bash my head into the monitor, the headlamp imprints into my forehead and I yelp in pain.
*CLUNK* The sound stops and the Hail Mary is still.
“Grace!” Rocky exclaims.
“Foreign bodies detected,” announces Mary in her usual robotic voice.
“What the fu– I’m coming!” I awkwardly manoeuvre from my place and scamper down the control room ladder into the lab.
Rocky is in his xenonite suit standing stiffly, he was focusing his hearing on something.
“Rock are you okay? What the fudge was that!” I throw off the headtorch and drop it to the ground. My head still hurts so it takes me a moment to realise what Rocky was focusing on.
“Grace, look.” He says ominously. Rocky points behind me down the hallway into the don’t-go-crazy room.
It’s a box. A huge, blue police box. I rub my eyes and blink rapidly to confirm my mind isn’t playing tricks on me. I just stand there, speechless. How the actual god damn hell did that get there. That can’t be real. For a moment I think it must be a projection from the room’s displays but that doesn’t make any sense, it’s sitting perfectly on the walkway. Parked right in the centre.
“Not me. Just appeared.” Rocky looks horrified, like truly chilled to his spongey bones. It can’t have just appeared. I don’t even know what to say, I don’t even really grasp what is in front of me. I step towards it.
“Grace! Be careful… Can see inside,” Rocky cautioned, his voice behind the translation software was low. Afraid.
“What’s inside?” I ask. I walk into the room and stand in the doorway. Rocky scuttles up next to me. He’s shaking.
“I don’t- I can’t explain. Don’t understand.”
The door squeaks open. Rocky and I take a step back. He’s pressed up against me.
A man steps out. A man. What the fuck. This is not real. I’m frozen. Rocky is frozen, he sees him too, it’s not just me. We must be experiencing shared psychosis; there is no way any of this is real.
“Ah. Hello!” Says the man, waving cheerily at us, grinning. He’s… British? Why would he be British that… that’s not the point at all. Why– no. How—
“Grace.” Rocky warbles. He gasps onto my pant leg, I put my hand on his carapace.
“I don’t know,” I mutter quietly enough so that only Rocky can hear.
My entire brain has short circuited. I’m looking for some kind of logical solution, any possible explanation to this situation but I’m drawing complete blanks. It’s just actually physically impossible for someone to be here right now. There is no way to explain it.
Another voice calls out from inside the box. A woman.
“Wait up I couldn’t find my other shoe but I’m ready now- Oh hello!” She smiles at us too as she steps out of the box, also British. I catch a small glimpse of light from inside before she closes the door behind her.
“We just needed to make a bit of an emergency landing, pitstop for a bit, I hope you don’t mind? Engine trouble, you know how it is,” says the man, alarmingly casually. He looks around him. “Lovely ship. Yours? Where are we off to?”
“God, you look sick, are you ‘right?” Says the woman compassionately, wide eyed and waving at us. “Hello?”
Rocky is as still and quiet as, well, a rock, so I guess it's up to me to suss this out. I haven’t seen another human being in literal years but here they are. Two of them. Just, standing there in our ship like it's just another Tuesday. I open my mouth to speak but I literally don’t know what to say. I inhale sharply a couple of times as if to start a sentence, but I swallow them back. They’re looking at me strangely now.
“You’re not…” I begin to choke out, “you’re not real. Right?”
That was maybe the stupidest thing I have ever said. What does that even mean? What would they even respond to that? Literally what else am I supposed to say right now?
“Ha.’Course we’re real, see?” He wiggled his fingers at us with a goofy closed mouth smile that reached his eyes.
“Oh yeah we’re real,” replied the woman, earnestly. She pulled on the man’s tie, yanking him forwards. He spluttered a little. “See?” She smiled, tilting her head at us.
I furrow my brow at them, still infinitely confused.
“I think we’d better introduce ourselves,” said the man awkwardly, seemingly trying to diffuse the tension. “Bit rude of us to barge in without giving you our names. I’m the Doctor, this is Rose, we… travel.” He gave us an up-and-down look. “A human and an Eridian, what an unlikely duo! What’s got you two so far from home?”
“How…” I start.
“Oh, I’ve known a few Eridians in my time, lovely people. Not such a fan of the planet, though, no offense. A bit of a sensory deprivation tank, you know with the whole ‘lack of sunlight’ situation. Not my top holiday destination.” He looked down at Rocky. “Sorry.”
Rocky doesn't look like he absorbed any of that. At this point I’ve gotten used to his body language enough to know what he’s focusing on. I glance down at him, and he has this look to him like he’s a million miles away, attention beyond the two strangers and at the box instead.
“No, how are you here?” Frustration peered into my voice. Why were they acting like this is so normal? Also, sorry he’s been to Erid? He can’t have. Even if he is lying, how would he even know about Eridians? How are there people on my ship?!
“Oh, the TARDIS?” He slaps the door fondly like it’s the roof of a car. “She’s my ship. She sort of teleports, I guess, but that is a gross oversimplification of the actual mechanics of it which are really quite interesting but usually people aren’t so interested in that.”
“Sorry did you say teleport?” I say, bewildered.
“Well like I said, not exactly but in laymen’s terms it sort of appears that way–“
“Excuse me?! Stop-- You need to start telling some real truths real quick," I say with fear barely coated in frustration, but really now he’s pissing me off . I don’t need to explain to him that teleportation is pretty much physically impossible, at least it can’t do this. So why are they being so obtuse?
“What are you doing here on our ship? And don’t lie because Rocky here weighs more than a fridge and he will not hesitate to use all two hundred and fifty pounds-“
“The box.” Rocky interrupts. “What’s in the box? I don’t understand.”
“What?” I say.
“Can see inside. It just keeps going. Can hear around box and also inside box and the more I hear the more there is. I don’t understand-“ I look at him with bewilderment. He’s completely overwhelmed. “Show me.”
“Now listen,” the man put his hands out defensively. “There are certain laws about the universe that you believe to be true and because of these laws there are certain things that you reasonably assume are impossible.” Wow so this guy is both nuts and incredibly condescending. I open my mouth to rebut but he continues. “Now we have gotten off on the wrong foot, but I promise you that we are telling you the truth.”
“Open. The door,” I press.
“There are some things about the universe that you have not even begun to understand.”
“The door.” Rocky demands.
“Okay.” He backs up a little. The two strangers share a look and the woman, Rose, opens the door hesitantly and steps aside to give me a better view.
No way.
I step closer.
No way.
It's got to be some kind of trick. I place a hand on the exterior of the box, its wood. Cold, solid, real. I step inside.
Rocky was right. It just keeps going, it's impossible. Like something out of Star Trek. The exterior of the box couldn’t be more than a few feet wide but inside…
Rocky shuffles around my legs, throwing me off balance. I stumble forward a little, catching myself on a guard railing. He darts up the stairs into the larger landing. My mouth is agape, I wouldn’t be surprised if I drooled a little, I just cannot actually believe what I am seeing, but it's real. It's right in front of me. I cup my hands around my mouth and nose as I marvel at the world around me. Because that’s what it is, it’s like a whole world contained like some kind of pocket dimension in that little blue box.
“Pretty cool, right?” Says Rose, taking a seat on one of the two plush chairs near what seems to be the central control panel. I might cry.
“Incredible,” I hear Rocky say, he’s running around the control panel, which surrounds a white beam in the centre that reaches all the way up to the ceiling. But hold on, something about that wasn’t right. I heard that from Rocky himself, not from the translator audio, which is outside, and probably too far away to hear from here.
“Wait what?” I exclaim in confusion. Rocky pauses too and cocks his carapace in intrigue.
“Grace, how did you do that?” The voice emanating from him, ‘his’ voice, I guess, sounds almost the same as the translator, only way less robotic.
“Do what?”
“You’re speaking Eridian. Like perfectly.”
“I’m obviously not. You’re the one speaking English.”
“The TARDIS has an automatic translator. Any language, any species.” interjects The Doctor as he saunters into the ship. There’s a little pride in his voice and a smile tugs at the edge of his mouth.
“You’re kidding.” I say, it's not a question. I’m completely overwhelmed with emotion right now. I go to rub my face and it's wet with tears. I hastily wipe them away to clear my vision. There is so much to take in right now. In my peripheral I see Rose stifles a giggle. “Wow,” is all I can muster up.
“It’s a pocket dimension, of sorts. I assume you were wondering,” says The Doctor.
“I was,” Rocky and I say in unison, still entranced by the space. My neck hurts from craning it but I don’t even care, there’s too much to see.
“Through there is the closet, library and swimming pool. The swimming pool is empty right now because I need the water for coolant. Sorry about the smoke, she’s not in the best nick right now.”
“How far does it go?” Asks Rocky, tapping the ground beneath him to try and get some sense of scale.
“Uh, forever, really. But it gets a bit impractical after a point.” I turn to him and raise an eyebrow.
“Now I really don’t believe you,” I say, half-jokingly but really it's more of a protective measure for my own sanity.
It’s all too much. In an instant, my entire understanding of the universe has been flipped on its head, and I have utterly no idea what to do with myself. My whole-body burns with an intense need to understand everything before I have a total freak out. I have so many questions I don’t even know where to begin. Fortunately, Rocky gets the ball rolling for me.
“It shouldn’t be possible at all,” he says matter-of-factly. “Quantum teleportation doesn’t allow for transportation of matter. This,” he gestures all around him, “...is matter. Explain?” He turns to me for assurance too. I’m stumped too. We’ve spent many-a-night discussing it but really relativity and quantum mechanics is more my wheelhouse since Erid hadn’t even discovered it before sending their greatest minds blindly into interstellar space. Even then, it’s not my specialty and even then, this is certainly far beyond the scope of anything either of our species have ever seriously considered possible.
“Well-“ The Doctor starts, before immediately being interrupted once again by Rocky.
“Also, what is method of propulsion? Astrophage? That does not account for impossibility of faster than light-speed travel. Also-“
“Also-“ I say, interrupting Rocky. “How in the world did two humans end up with this kind of technology?”
“Yes, that also,” Rocky affirms. “Also, what is the purpose of second heart organ?” He points at The Doctor.
“Yes, that also—sorry?”
The two strangers share another unreadable look. The Doctor inhales sharply through his teeth and straightens his arms into the pockets of his trenchcoat. He carried himself in this bizarre sort of larger than life manner that made him seem completely unreal.
“I think you’ll find that if you let me get a word in, we might have a more productive conversation,” he says with a slathering of impatience. “Now I don’t tend to get this intimate with people on first meeting,” Rose bites down on her knuckle to muffle a chuckle that I hear anyway, “so I’d at least like to know who you are first.” He leans up casually against the control panel and gestures for me to take a seat on the other plush stool.
I’m a little frustrated about why I should have to explain myself when he’s just appeared on my ship with technology beyond my wildest imagination and no explanation as of yet, but whatever. I briefly introduce myself; Rocky does the same. It is so weird to be able to understand him fluently, on any other day we’d be freaking out about it, but it strangely feels like the most normal part about this whole situation. Only adding to the bizarrity was their reaction when I give them my name. Both of their eyes light up in recognition, Rose’s jaw drops.
“You’re joking? You’re THE Dr Ryland Grace and Rocky?” She gasps. I shouldn’t really be surprised that she knew who I was, I was aware that I was probably pretty well known on Earth at least, though I didn’t like to think about it too hard or the pressure would make me nauseous. But how ON EARTH did she know about Rocky? The Beatles weren’t due to make it back to Earth for another couple of years, assuming that they do make it, that is. Were they ahead of schedule? How would that even be possible if they were already poised to travel at near light speed?
“How could I be so stupid! Of course!” The Doctor spiritedly slaps his forehead, “one of the most iconic galactic duos in this side of the cosmos! Wow, Dr Grace, it truly is an honour to meet you.” He giddily reaches out a hand to shake. I take it hesitantly and he shakes it firmly.
“Uh… thanks…,” I say, but my mind is suddenly elsewhere. When he pulls away, I fight the urge to hold on to this stranger a little longer. The handshake lingers on my skin; I had almost forgotten the buzz of latent energy that passes from person to person in a simple touch.
In my old life, there was always a new hand to shake, occasionally an old friend to hug. Even in times of drought, I was never consciously bothered by any lack of physical touch. I always knew that these things came around. Until they didn’t.
It’s been two years since I hauled Rocky’s burning body to safety, my scars still itch from time to time to remind me of the last time I’d ever feel proof of another person.
I’m still not convinced I’m not dreaming.
“Your sacrifice and dedication to humanity is just simply inspiring,” he continued. Yeah, ouch.
He turns to Rocky and… bows? I guess you could call it a bow, but it was more of a bizarre, hunched spider-esque interpretive performance. Accompanying the performance was a series of whistles, hums and guttural trills that were about as close as a human voice box could get to comprehensible Eridian. I assume it was some sort of formal greeting, but Rocky had never introduced me to any such concept. Maybe that was for the best. Rocky stepped back cautiously as he flailed in front of him, but by the end he miraculously seemed to understand, but looked too taken aback to return any gesture. The room goes quiet for a moment while he readjusts his blazer and tie.
“Explain,” Rocky demands.
***
How could he be so humanoid if he’s not even remotely actually human? A part of me wants to believe that he’s lying, but the rest of me knows that Rocky hears two hearts in there and that humans don’t just have that. A secret, evil third part of me wants to put him under a microscope to understand just what makes him alien.
Him being an Alien does actually explain pretty much every other question we have, if only after a long and fascinating conversation. I really thought we had this physics stuff figured out. I was even starting to think that I personally had this extraterrestrial stuff figured out, but every day truly is a school day.
I swivel back and forth on my stool, badgering him with increasingly specific questions about his adventures, which he seemingly happily indulges in sharing, though I can’t help but notice how he suavely dodges and redirects every question about his home planet. Rocky asks plenty of questions too, though he’s mostly interested in his ship, ‘the TARDIS’. I think the acronym is silly, it doesn’t really make sense, but a lot of things that I don’t think really make sense are on my radar right now so it’s not really important.
“Usually, people we meet don’t have this many questions. They tend just to ogle for a minute and then go along with it,” Rose says jovially.
The Doctor butts in before I can start feeling embarrassed.
“Not that I mind!” He says. “Its nice to be around a couple of curious people. And what’s the point of travelling anyways if you don’t get to tell everyone about it?”
Most mind-blowing of all of today’s revelations was the absolute bombshell that time travel is actually real. I make him prove this one because it’s actually so outlandish. He disappears down one of the ship’s hallways and reappears a short time later with an actual real live ammonite from the cretaceous period in a tank. The ammonite swims contentedly in little circles. Apparently, he’s got a whole collection of live specimens in a prehistoric menagerie somewhere in the ship that I will be exploring later. Just thinking about it gets me giddy.
All of time and space. Wow. What a concept. I wonder how long it would take for the idea to settle into my newly upturned worldview.
“So,” I start, a question forming on my lips that I had been pondering for a little while, but if I’m honest, I’m a little scared to hear the answer. “If you can travel all of time and space in an instant… hypothetically, would you be able to-“
“Take you home?” He completes my sentence for me. “I’m sorry.”
My heart sinks. Of course it wouldn’t be that simple. It never is for us.
“Oh,” I say, failing hard at playing it like my stomach just fell through a black hole never to be seen again and I’m not teetering on the edge of throwing up all of a sudden. “What is it, some kind of paradox or something?”
“Or something. Yeah.” He seems genuinely apologetic.
It's fine, really. I already knew I was never going home. It would be stupid of me to make up a scenario in my head where after everything I could just spawn back home and Rocky could come too and I could show him the sea and feel the sand beneath my feet and mist on my face, and eat real food. That would be foolish to imagine, so I don’t.
“Oh that's alright, it's cool. We’re already en route to Erid so don’t even worry about it.” I swallow hard and force out a tight-lipped half smile.
The doctor scratches his neck thoughtfully. “Well, I need to run some repairs on the TARDIS before we can do anything, but if you can give us a few hours or so… we could happily give you a ride to Erid?” He raises his eyebrows amusingly, “but I’d hate to crash your pleasure cruise if you’re happy—”
Rocky shrieks in excitement, so shrill that the TARDIS couldn’t pick up anything comprehensible to translate.
“Yes! Yes! Thank you!” He sings, barely more composed. He’s flung his arms up in his characteristic ‘jazz hands.’ I don’t remember how long it’s been since I last saw him do them. “Grace! No more rations! No more ‘stir crazy’!” He runs over to me and flings himself at me. I crouch down just in time to catch him but he bowls me over. I allow myself to laugh, and I can’t stop myself from crying. I may never see the Earth again but as the next best thing, this gift is a miracle.
Rocky’s arms are wrapped securely around my neck, effectively pinning me in place. Even so, I crane my neck to smile gratefully at The Doctor and then at Rose, red faced and blurry eyed. “Thank you,” I say. He nods.
I wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my shirt, only a touch embarrassed.
“You know what,” The Doctor says, out of the blue. “We’re not really in a rush. If you two wanted to take a little detour, we probably have time for, oh, three, maybe four star systems.”
I gasp. “You’re kidding?”
“Your call.” He traces his hands over the control interface, his tone proud. I get the feeling that he really revels in blowing people’s minds, I can’t knock him for that I’m sure I’d be the same.
***
A short while later, I’m in the dormitory of the Mary, packing my very few treasured belongings into a NASA branded compression cube. Rocky insisted on helping The Doctor with the TARDIS’ repairs, though with all due respect to his genius, I’m not quite sure how much help he’s being. Regardless, for work experience it doesn’t get much better than shadowing a time traveller while he repairs his pocket dimension-sized ship.
Rose wanted a tour of the ship, which I happily obliged. We ended up sitting cross legged on the ground, rummaging through a box of children’s drawings while I eat maybe the best sandwich I’ve ever had in my life that I fashioned in the TARDIS’ kitchen. She pulls one out with three little stick people standing atop a rocket surrounded by stars. It’s my crew and I. Charmingly scrappy handwriting reads "we luv the hale mary crew.” She smiles fondly, gently caressing a thumb over the other crew member’s faces.
“Her name was–”
“Olesya Ilyukhina, right?”
“Yeah. And Yao Li-Jie. They um… they didn’t make it through the coma.”
“You told us, in your video logs, remember?”
“Woah, yeah.” Time travel is crazy.
“Did you know them well?”
“I think so.” The coma did some serious damage to my long-term memory, I’m certain. Even after so long, my life before the Hail Mary is still patchy. I try not to think about it too often or I start to scare myself. I quickly steer the conversation somewhere else.
“So… do you have someone waiting for you back home? Earth is your home, right? You’re not from some kinda distant future intergalactic human settlement?”
She snorts. “Haha! No, yeah I’m from London, same as my mum. She worries about me, but who’s mum doesn’t?”
“Well I think she might be justified, correct me if I’m wrong but you don’t seem to be living a particularly conventional lifestyle.”
“Speak for yourself,” she claps back. I throw my head back and we both laugh. I stare up at the ceiling and have the sudden comical thought of what is my life?
“Is this weird?” She says, tone shifting out of nowhere.
“Is what weird?”
“Well, you know you haven’t seen anyone in what? Years, right? And we just sort of, appeared.” She raises an eyebrow at me. “That’s gotta throw you for a loop, no?”
“Ha,” I chuckle, “yeah, it’s odd alright.”
“It’s okay though, mostly,” my words trail off. “Rocky, he’s my everything. He’s all I need, really. And besides, it’s not like I have that many people to miss back home anyway. I don’t even remember the last time I…” I don’t know how to finish that sentence without sounding like a desperate mess. Since I felt the touch of a person? I’m scarred with the proof of contact between me and Rocky, and The Doctor just shook my hand, but that’s not enough. Besides, it turns out that neither of them were even human. I wish that didn’t matter to me, I didn’t think it did.
I sigh. I know the word that I need, that I ache for, but I’m too scared to so much as breathe it into the universe.
Rose notices my mood shift, because she gently places a hand on my arm and suddenly I’ve completely forgotten how to be a person. It feels instinctive to pull away but I stop myself. This is normal. People do this to comfort each other all the time. Why do I even need to remind myself of this? I don’t think I used to be like this.
“You ‘right?” Rose asks compassionately.
“Wait–” I say as she pulls away, before I even know what to say next. I startle her, but she places her hand back on my forearm. “Sorry.” I hide my face in my hands. “Sorry,” I say again.
“Been a while since someone’s done that, huh?”
“Psh. Yeah,” I breathe out an embarrassed laugh into my hands. “It’s so stupid, but I think I’ve forgotten how to be a human. I don’t think I realised it until just today.” She squeezes my arm a little tighter, it’s reassuring.
“I get it,” she whispers. I look up from my hands and throw her a curious look.
“Travelling with The Doctor, you can get a bit swept up with the scale of it all. Sometimes I have too much influence for the person I am. I guess it’s easy to forget that I’m just a chip shop girl. Hard to stay grounded, yunno?”
“I get it,” I parrot. I place my other hand atop hers on my arm, but she catches it and pulls me into an embrace.
Embrace. That’s the word I could never bear to utter. But I didn’t need to. My breath catches in simple shock, but I reciprocate quicker than I expect. I hope that it doesn’t come across as too desperate, even though I am. It’s like a hearty meal, just to feel another human’s heart beating in time with my own. Her hands are interlocked around my neck, hands idly fiddling with the short hair below my ears.
My tear ducts are getting the workout of a lifetime today, it seems. I stifle a sniffle so as to not drip snot on her shirt, and I hear her do the same, her face hidden from sight, resting over my shoulder.
“It’s nice to know we’re not the only ones in this line of work,” I say, voice muffled by a combination of blonde hair and fabric. We both chuckle halfheartedly.
We hold on comfortably for a while, I can’t tell you how long we spent just existing together as people, breathing in synchronicity. The room breathes with us. When it feels right, we both slowly pull away. She’s smiling sweetly at me and I return the gesture. Rose sighs and slumps into a semi-lounging position on the floor with her hands outstretched behind her.
“He’s the last one, you know.” Rose nods in the direction of the don’t-go-crazy-room. I cock my head to the side. “Of his whole species. The Last of the Time Lords,” she says in a pseudo-dramatic voice.
“Oh.” I say, looking down at the child’s drawing between us, because what else do you say to such a profoundly tragic thing?
Her gaze wanders aimlessly around the room as she speaks. “He does all these incredible things, but he holds this incredible sadness. Sometimes I think it’ll kill him.” She sighs and kicks out her legs in front of her, and her eyes land on mine. “I just want you to know that you don’t have to feel that way. That they’re all going to be alright, thanks to you. I’ve seen it”
As horrible as it sounds, her words brought me relief from a weight I didn’t even consciously know I was harbouring.
“Thank you.”
The Doctor sticks his head through the ladder hole in the roof of the dormitory. His face is smattered with some kind of soot.
“Sorry to interrupt, but she’s ready to go!” He hollers down at us with a cheesy grin.
Rocky is waiting impatiently outside the TARDIS, shifting his body weight from one side to another.
“Hurry, hurry!” He says, beckoning us to move faster.
“Hold your horses bud I had to finish packing,” I say.
“Have no horses to hold. Idiom is stupid.”
“Yeah, ok whatever.” I’m not in the business of domestic bickering right now, there are FAR more exciting things going on.
“Hold up,” interjects The Doctor. “I need to run a quick test flight, just a few minutes back and forth to make sure everything is running smoothly.
“Oh, that’s alright,” I say, reaching for the door.
“You two should sit this out. I would not forgive myself if something went wrong and I killed Earth and Erid’s saviours because I wanted to take them on a joyride.”
“Oh, okay,” I utter. “That makes sense,” but a nasty gut feeling flashes through me. I ignore it. Not my ship, not my rules, I guess. Rocky shuffles uncertainly too, but we both step back and make room for The Doctor to pass.
“Let’s go, Rose!”
“Oh, right yeah I’m coming. I’ll see you guys in a minute, yeah?”
The TARDIS door squeaks closed. Rocky and I stand anxiously in the shadow of the doorway to the room. The horrid revving, scraping sounds pick up and the box starts to pulsate in and out of view. It’s astounding to see in action. Engine sounds fade, and in moments, the TARDIS, The Doctor and Rose have completely vanished, Rocky and I alone together again. I cradle my belongings in my arms and wait patiently for their return.
***
I didn’t starve on the way to Erid, as it turns out, because despite all the odds I’m sitting at my desk, watching the waves lap at the pebbled shore outside my window. Its a bit of a nothing day today, I just have some lesson plans to finish up, and Rocky is too busy to hang out so I’m alone. My computer monitor glitches out, its been doing that more often these days. My human tech won't last me much longer I fear.
I idly rub at my arm, tracing over skin that was once embraced. On days like today, when the dust settles and the air is a little too dead, I’m reminded of the moment they left, and I think I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering what happened. Awaiting patiently for their return.