The Beginning of the End (Doctor Who)

Chap. 34

The others are sleeping, giving you quite a few hours to wander. You take a random corridor, stopping when you feel the vibrations increase, the walls seeming to stretch and shrink as if the ship's reorganising. Or it's trying to get you somewhere.

Quickly you're left with one door, the rest of the walls smooth. Not interested, you try to walk away, only for the walls to move again, forcing you to face it.

Not having anything better to do, you give the sentient ship a nod and shrug of acknowledgement.

Walking in, you realise it's a bedroom. There's a high ceiling with an extravagant chandelier, a long Victorian sofa, and a large bed on a raised step at the far end of the room, along with some bookshelves.

You turn to leave when you see a very familiar dark purple jacket neatly folded on the edge of the sofa. Actually, the more you look the more you see of her. A few pairs of boots by the door, a hat stand, a large mirror on the wall. 

The only thing really missing is the parasol.

"Why?" You demand, getting a mixed hum in response. It's somewhat sympathetic with an underlying tone of 'this doesn't mean I like either of you.'

"I don't appreciate it." You decide, though you end up taking a pair of boots. They're the ones she was wearing in the vault.

Switching shoes in your room, you spend the rest of the 'night' in the library, reading books about Gallifrey's history.

++++++++++++++++++

"Any requests?" The Doctor asks as you all gather in the counsel room.

"We don't know that many planets, Doc." Graham points out.

"Well, " She's cut off by a hard shake, despite not touching anything. "She does need some new artron filters." The Time Lord pushes a few buttons.

"Some what now?" Graham asks, appearing quite confused.

"Artron filters. Keeps the TARDIS from absorbing too much time travel energy and exploding. She's a bit overdue."

Leaving Graham bewildered, she pulls out five vacuum hose-looking items and hands one to each of you.

"They'll go off when you come across one, come on!"

You have a general idea of what she's referencing, but everyone else just looks at the each other with a confused look. Oblivious, the Doctor runs out... into a dump. Miles of unused, broken pieces of equipment lie in mountains as far as the eye can see.

"It's a junk galaxy, like the Universe's landfill." She shouts on top of a pile.

No one looks excited, spreading out within distance of the TARDIS. There's no way... you turn around to go back inside, but the doors shut. Locked. 

Walking through piles of rubbish seems to slow time down.

"We're never going to find one!" Ryan shouts.

"Course we are. I've programmed the detectors specifically. I found seven the last time I was here."

"Did it take you seven years?" You groan.

"It couldn't have been more than a month." She considers, "Unless that was Seffilun 59."

"Which one's this?" Yaz asks.

"Seffilun 27. Maybe 59's the one with a big pile of these." She holds one up. "That's the problem with junk galaxies, all the planets look the same. It's hard to keep track."

"If we've wasted the last four hours on the wrong planet-" Graham begins.

"Oi! Who took you rainbathing in the upper tropics of Kinstarno?" She reminds him.