![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
watch_is_me'Verse: Personal canon.
Words: 903.
Prompt:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
oncoming_storms, 59.3, "Caught in an embarrassing situation"—as well as a conversation with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
not_from_mars
“Doctor.”
“Mm?” The Doctor didn’t look up from the TARDIS’ scanner—ever since LoA had succeeded in breaking into her, back on Earth, he’d treated her with greater care, checking her condition between adventures. This particular adventure, she’d taken quite a beating—power reserves drained; masses of connections disconnected and buffers debuffed; and the Oct-III Metatemporal Heisenberg Particle Counter blown right offline. That’d need replacing. Where to find a new one? “Twenty-second century? No, nope, still uncertain about their particles. Fifty-third? Hm…”
“Doctor.”
“What, right, yes, that’s me, here, listening.”
“Back there. When we were running and the door was locked…”
The Doctor pulled off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he frowned across the console at Sally. “Running. Locked doors. Right. More a condition than a point in time. Specifics? Longitude, latitude, x-y coordinates?”
“After the Clocitokxji—”
“Very nice. Bang-on double glottal slide!”
“Thank you, I try. They’d started chasing us, and you were at that one door, holding it shut, and I was at the other, trying to get it open. But it was locked, and I said—”
“’Doctor, it’s locked!’?”
Sally swept a wave of hair out of her face and threw him a look—the stern half-frown that graded into amusement when it reached her eyes. He liked that look, liked knowing she kept alert and wouldn’t let him go on without a warning. When she brought him up short like this, he thought, if the drums ever get too loud, she’ll know. She might make the difference.
“Right. …You did, though, didn’t you?”
“It’s locked, I need the screwdriver, Doctor. That’s a paraphrase, no quotes.”
“’Course.” The Doctor scratched at the back of his head, wondering where this was going. Sally Sparrow always asked questions, noticed little things and stored them away for later, worrying at the loose ends he knit up in his own mind without even properly thinking about them. But the questions weren’t usually so...mundane. “I tossed it over, you caught the pass, excellent form, got the door open, gave me to the count of 3, I jammed the door with that cyborg arm, and off we went.” He raised both eyebrows at her, waiting for the punchline.
“I’m coming to it.” She pushed off from the console—she’d been leaning against it and scribbling away in her dog-earred journal—and came around to his side. His sonic screwdriver lay close by, and she swept it up and turned it around in her hands. “I thought it was broken, that the Clocitokxji—”
“Now you’re just showing off.”
“—that they’d done something to it when they got it from you and took it apart, missed putting a piece back right. Because it didn’t light up or make any noise. And I thought, Sally Sparrow, that’s it, after all of this you’re going to be done in by a locked door and a broken screwdriver, that’s not anywhere near as literary as weeping angels. But it worked, it opened the door, like nothing was wrong.”
She flipped it around in her hands and held it in ready position. “Look.”
“Oi, hold on, don’t go firing that up in here. She’s had enough of a day as it is, the TARDIS. Doesn’t need amateurs taking potshots at her.” He snatched the screwdriver out of her hands and stowed it away in the inner pocket of his leather jacket.
“Aren’t you going to look at it, make sure it isn’t damaged?”
“The TARDIS first. She’s low on power, we’ll take her by the Rift. Daytrip to Cardiff, let her soak, then we’re off to...7213, I think. Fancy seeing the shipyards of Gramercy Altura? Great big solar-windships, sails like spun sugar, miles across. There’s a museum there you might like. Shipwrecks. Interstellar. Recovered artifacts. They’ve got the entire library of the Marooned Monks of Greffit Creep.”
She cocked her head to one side, quick and observant, like her namesake; and he suspected she suspected that he was deliberately distracting her from her questions. She was right.
“They’re illuminated.”
“What is?”
“The library. The manuscripts. Illuminated, both ways. Pictures, you know, squiggly bits, big capital letters, but also lights. Like those cards, you open them up and they sing a little song and Rudolph’s nose glows and you close it and ta-dah, all quiet on the Christmas front. ‘Cept the lights more nebulas seen through the rings of an ice world and the music’s more like...well, a bit like the Beatles.”
She let him win, then, smacking him on the shoulder before heading back around the console to tie her journal closed. “Okay. As long as it’s not ‘Yellow Submarine.’”
He grinned and cranked the TARDIS’ settings back to Earth, twenty-first century. “Museum might have one of those, actually.”
Later, while Sally was off checking in on her shop and her boyfriend—he’d dropped her by, promising to pick her up when the TARDIS was ready—he fished the screwdriver back out of his pocket.
“Mm.”
The tiny panel near the base of the device slid aside easily, and the Doctor squinted down at the two miniscule toggles it revealed.
Just like the Clocitokxji. All logic and Rube Goldberg moving parts and no concept of showmanship whatsoever. Strictly speaking, no, the screwdriver didn’t really need these functions, but...
“’S not a lightsaber without the phhsszt-hummmm and the glowstick effect, now, is it?”
The Doctor nodded to himself and flipped the sound-and-light controls back to “on.”
Words: 903.
Prompt:
oncoming_storms, 59.3, "Caught in an embarrassing situation"—as well as a conversation with not_from_mars“Doctor.”
“Mm?” The Doctor didn’t look up from the TARDIS’ scanner—ever since LoA had succeeded in breaking into her, back on Earth, he’d treated her with greater care, checking her condition between adventures. This particular adventure, she’d taken quite a beating—power reserves drained; masses of connections disconnected and buffers debuffed; and the Oct-III Metatemporal Heisenberg Particle Counter blown right offline. That’d need replacing. Where to find a new one? “Twenty-second century? No, nope, still uncertain about their particles. Fifty-third? Hm…”
“Doctor.”
“What, right, yes, that’s me, here, listening.”
“Back there. When we were running and the door was locked…”
The Doctor pulled off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he frowned across the console at Sally. “Running. Locked doors. Right. More a condition than a point in time. Specifics? Longitude, latitude, x-y coordinates?”
“After the Clocitokxji—”
“Very nice. Bang-on double glottal slide!”
“Thank you, I try. They’d started chasing us, and you were at that one door, holding it shut, and I was at the other, trying to get it open. But it was locked, and I said—”
“’Doctor, it’s locked!’?”
Sally swept a wave of hair out of her face and threw him a look—the stern half-frown that graded into amusement when it reached her eyes. He liked that look, liked knowing she kept alert and wouldn’t let him go on without a warning. When she brought him up short like this, he thought, if the drums ever get too loud, she’ll know. She might make the difference.
“Right. …You did, though, didn’t you?”
“It’s locked, I need the screwdriver, Doctor. That’s a paraphrase, no quotes.”
“’Course.” The Doctor scratched at the back of his head, wondering where this was going. Sally Sparrow always asked questions, noticed little things and stored them away for later, worrying at the loose ends he knit up in his own mind without even properly thinking about them. But the questions weren’t usually so...mundane. “I tossed it over, you caught the pass, excellent form, got the door open, gave me to the count of 3, I jammed the door with that cyborg arm, and off we went.” He raised both eyebrows at her, waiting for the punchline.
“I’m coming to it.” She pushed off from the console—she’d been leaning against it and scribbling away in her dog-earred journal—and came around to his side. His sonic screwdriver lay close by, and she swept it up and turned it around in her hands. “I thought it was broken, that the Clocitokxji—”
“Now you’re just showing off.”
“—that they’d done something to it when they got it from you and took it apart, missed putting a piece back right. Because it didn’t light up or make any noise. And I thought, Sally Sparrow, that’s it, after all of this you’re going to be done in by a locked door and a broken screwdriver, that’s not anywhere near as literary as weeping angels. But it worked, it opened the door, like nothing was wrong.”
She flipped it around in her hands and held it in ready position. “Look.”
“Oi, hold on, don’t go firing that up in here. She’s had enough of a day as it is, the TARDIS. Doesn’t need amateurs taking potshots at her.” He snatched the screwdriver out of her hands and stowed it away in the inner pocket of his leather jacket.
“Aren’t you going to look at it, make sure it isn’t damaged?”
“The TARDIS first. She’s low on power, we’ll take her by the Rift. Daytrip to Cardiff, let her soak, then we’re off to...7213, I think. Fancy seeing the shipyards of Gramercy Altura? Great big solar-windships, sails like spun sugar, miles across. There’s a museum there you might like. Shipwrecks. Interstellar. Recovered artifacts. They’ve got the entire library of the Marooned Monks of Greffit Creep.”
She cocked her head to one side, quick and observant, like her namesake; and he suspected she suspected that he was deliberately distracting her from her questions. She was right.
“They’re illuminated.”
“What is?”
“The library. The manuscripts. Illuminated, both ways. Pictures, you know, squiggly bits, big capital letters, but also lights. Like those cards, you open them up and they sing a little song and Rudolph’s nose glows and you close it and ta-dah, all quiet on the Christmas front. ‘Cept the lights more nebulas seen through the rings of an ice world and the music’s more like...well, a bit like the Beatles.”
She let him win, then, smacking him on the shoulder before heading back around the console to tie her journal closed. “Okay. As long as it’s not ‘Yellow Submarine.’”
He grinned and cranked the TARDIS’ settings back to Earth, twenty-first century. “Museum might have one of those, actually.”
Later, while Sally was off checking in on her shop and her boyfriend—he’d dropped her by, promising to pick her up when the TARDIS was ready—he fished the screwdriver back out of his pocket.
“Mm.”
The tiny panel near the base of the device slid aside easily, and the Doctor squinted down at the two miniscule toggles it revealed.
Just like the Clocitokxji. All logic and Rube Goldberg moving parts and no concept of showmanship whatsoever. Strictly speaking, no, the screwdriver didn’t really need these functions, but...
“’S not a lightsaber without the phhsszt-hummmm and the glowstick effect, now, is it?”
The Doctor nodded to himself and flipped the sound-and-light controls back to “on.”
