The Defender of Time

Twenty-Four

"It's a funny name," said Lea. "TARDIS. It's like... a letter sandwich."

It was empty outside, except for a couple garbage bins, the neighbor's whiny poodle, Clara and Lea, and the Doctor and his big blue TARDIS. Her coat flapped slightly in the wind, her neck craned close to a 180.

Clara squeezed Lea's hand warningly, but the Doctor was unaffected. He held up a key which reflected brightly in the morning sun, and he turned it over in his hand a few times before fitting it in the lock. "Time And Relative Dimensions In Space," he explained. The door swung open with a slight push, and he stepped back. "Go on in."

Lea led the way, pulling Clara behind her. She stopped in the doorway and peered in curiously. She didn't expect herself to be surprised, but she still was; it looked absolutely nothing like the TARDIS she had flown. On her neck, she could feel the two sets of eyes as she observed it, so she made like she wasn't too scared to step in, placing her feet on the metal floor. She held her breath; the whole place was going to implode. Boom! The end of everything, ever.

Nothing happened. She exhaled.

"Does it have a radio?"

Clara's jaw dropped. "That's your first question?" She asked. "It's bigger on the inside! Why do you care if there's--"

"Of course there's a radio." The Doctor smiled a little and winked. He strolled past Clara and Lea and took a small hop over the threshold which led downward half a step to the main console (which, again, was much flashier than what Lea remembered seeing). The whole ship made a sort of whizzing noise when he flipped the first lever, and Clara dropped her grip of Lea's hand to grasp onto the railing.

"So, we're moving through actual time?" Clara asked.

The Doctor smiled again, the same way, and nodded curtly.

Clara nodded back. "So, what's it made of, time? I mean if you can just... rotor through it, it's got to be made of stuff. Like jam's made of strawberries. So? What's it made of?"

Lea had never heard her talk this much. Clara was always answering the questions, not asking them. She hummed. "Clocks, maybe?"

And there, again, was that smile. Lea wanted to smack it off his face. "No," he said, "not strawberries. And certainly not clocks! No, no, no, no, no! That would be unacceptable."

"And we can go anywhere?" Clara took a long step toward the Doctor and leaned forward on the console carefully. Her eyebrows were wrinkled in disbelief.

"Within reason." Smile. "Well, I say reason..." the Doctor did a sort of spin around Clara and landed at another set of buttons and levers.

It seemed Clara was still entirely unconvinced. "So, we could go backwards in time?" She asked.

Smile. "And space, yes."

Lea pushed herself up onto the railing and left her feet dangling. "And forwards in time?"

"And space! Totally! So, where do you want to go, eh? What do you want to see?" He was looking right at Clara, practically bouncing in place, with his eyes popping out of his head, which was bursting with all the excitement he was containing. Odds are he'd forgotten Lea was there.

Clara was silent. She squinted into the Doctor's eyes before shifting down to look at the floor. "I don't know," she muttered. She looked back up. "You know when someone asks you 'what's your favorite book?' and straight away you forget every single book you've ever read?"

"Yes," said Lea flatly. She snorted. "Definitely."

"No," said the Doctor. "Totally not."

"Well, that's a thing that happens." Clara straightened her stance and crossed her arms. A red crossbody bag hung down at her right side.