"The scullery has completely reformed around us." Charley says.
"Oh, the entire house, I imagine." The Doctor says.
"But where's the TARDIS? Where has the TARDIS gone?" Charley asks.
"I think we're still in her. But just as Edward Grove seems determined to fit us all within its blinkered world view, so it sees the TARDIS as nothing more than an extension of itself." The Doctor says.
Charley walks off and opens the door.
"In that case, if we're still within the TARDIS, what's the TARDIS doing standing in the larder?" Charley questions.
"Oh, it's even worse than I feared. I thought we were caught simply in a temporal loop, not a spatial one as well." The Doctor says.
"Come on, Doctor, Celestia. Let's get back inside and take off again." Charley urges.
"We can't, Charley. It's not going to work." Celestia shakes her head.
"It's worth a try surely? I'm going to open the TARDIS door." Charley says as she opens the other Tardis door. "Oh no."
"What have you found?" Celestia asks, walking over.
"Inside the TARDIS, it's another scullery, just the same as this one." Charley says.
"It is the same as this one, Charley. I'm prepared to bet that if you went in there and opened the larder door, you'd find another TARDIS standing there, with another scullery inside that one." The Doctor says.
"But how can that be?" Charley asks.
"It's another effect of the time loop. I'd imagine that the scullery through there is in the future. Not by much, just by the merest nanosecond." Celestia explains.
"We're looking at infinity, Charley. Infinite time and space, reduced to the dimensions of a few rooms in an old Edwardian house on Christmas Eve." The Doctor finishes for her as he start pacing.
"What do we do? How can we escape?" Charley asks.
"How do you escape infinity? All time and space compressed into one paradox. We've arrived in the TARDIS. We haven't yet arrived at all. We're in the process of arriving." The Doctor explains. "Now you understand why I wanted to leave?" He asks to the Time Lady.
"I'm sorry I can't escape when I know I would leave people behind." Celestia looks at him pointedly.
"We've become like the poor people in this house. Going round and round forever." Charley says.
"They've never died before, and at the same time they've been dying, every hour as the clock chimes, forever. Because there is no time here. Do you understand?" Celestia explains.
"This is the past, this is the present, this is the future, looping around as it always has been looping around, stuck in a rut since the beginning of time." The Doctor says.
"Doctor, Celestia." Charley is about to say something but The Doctor continues.
"And we have been here for ever too, Charley. Soon this is all we'll know because soon this is the only place we'll have ever been. This is our past and our destiny, the beginning and end of our travels all rolled into one. We live for two short hours or we live forever, whichever way you want to look at it." He says.
"You can't give up, Doctor. I can't believe there isn't a way out of this. You said if we could find the cause of the paradox." Charley was saying but this time Celestia interrupts.
"I'm so sorry, Charley. The paradox is us. It's us. We're already here, and there's nothing we can do about it." Celestia says. Then the door opens, and others are walking in.
YOU ARE READING
Fixing The Problems
FanfictionCelestia is a Time Lady from Gallifrey who is the best friend of The Doctor. She met him when they joined Time Lord Academy. They immediately got along and became best friends. She is also coming from a family of, what some people might call, "witch...
