The Orphan in the TARDIS

Chapter Twenty-Six

"You've let this place go a bit," the Warrior grumbles.

"Ah, it's his grunge phase. He grows out of it," Chinny grins.

Sophie jumps up the stairs, moving around the console to the jump seat. She collapses into the chair, crossing her legs underneath herself.

"Don't you listen to them," the Time Lord says, running his hands along the console. An alarm sound through the room, the Gallifreyan reeling back as it sends a shock through his hand, "Ow! The desktop is glitching."

The walls change around them, the room becoming brighter, as the TARDIS interior blinks to one from before the Time War. The walls fill with roundels, the floor once again the tile. As the room changed, the jump seat vanished, and Sophie hit the floor, hard. "Ow!" She exclaims, moving to stand off the floor.

Sandshoes smiles, walking over to help her up.

"Three of us from different time zones. It's trying to compensate," the Warrior says.

"Maybe it could compensate faster?" she grumbles.

"Hey, look," the oldest Time Lord says, "The round things."

"I love the round things."

"What are the round things?"

"No idea."

The TARDIS console starts to spark once again, the oldest Doctor bouncing up to it, "Oh dear, the friction contrafibulator." He flips a switch, the sparks disappearing, "Ha! There, stabilised."

Suddenly, almost like whiplash, the room around them changes again. The console isn't plain like it was, it has a top with Circular Gallifreyan words carved into it. The floor beneath their feet turns to glass, and railings appear behind them, where beyond you can fall to the lower level. Sophie relaxes her shoulders, hoping that that's the last change that will happen.

Sandshoes looks around at the console room, a deep frown forming on his face, his eyebrows furrowing, "Oh, you've redecorated. I don't like it."

Chinny, who had been looking at him with a yappy smile, morphs his face into a more playful glare, "Oh. Oh yeah? Oh, you never do." He once again bounces up to the console, his hands finding the exact buttons and switches he needs to begin to navigate the time/space machine. "Listen, we're going to the National Gallery. The Zygons are underneath it."

"No," Clara says, jumping up to stand beside him. She claps her hands, "UNIT HQ. They followed us there in the Black Archive." All she gets in return from the rest of the squad are stares of anger mixed with annoyance. "Okay, so you've heard of that, then."

Sophie shakes her head in frustration, "Well this is just bl**dy brilliant! This plan is going about as well as I'd hoped."

***

It takes a little while of the bow tie clad Doctor searching through cubbys, and storage rooms with in the immense ship, but he eventually returns small machine clutches in his arms.

After all three Doctor's crowd around and fiddle with it a little, a voice begins to filter through the dusty speakers, "Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart. I am his daughter."

"Wait...the Brig has a daughter in UNIT? Wow! That feels an important detail to have mentioned, Doc," Sophie says, turning to glance at the oldest Time Lord.

"Shush, I'm making a call," he says, shooting a pointed look. Picking up the old microphone off the machine, he shouts, "Science leads, Kate. Is that what you meant? Is that what your father meant?"