Saving the Doctor

Chapter 9

Bang!

The engines are loud and sound like nails on a chalkboard.

Definitely not how she's supposed to sound.

"I said to be careful! Don't you ever listen to instructions?!" He has a horrified look on his face.

I continue to try and concentrate, "I'm sorry, alright?! I'm doing the best I can!" I pull a lever before pressing a button and the Tardis lurches to the side, threatening to throw us over.

"I don't understand!" he yells over all the noise of the engines, hitting the top of the display screen, "We aren't moving!"

"What do you mean, 'We aren't moving'?" I yell back as the Tardis lurches to the other side now, "We seem to be moving to me!"

"Pull that lever!" He points and I take hold of it, letting the Tardis throw my weight back, hoping to save myself some energy. The screen gives new data and the Doctor reads it.

"No! No, no, no! Don't do that! What did I ever do to you?" He looks truly offended at the information the Tardis just gave him.

I barely have time to wonder what could be wrong before the Tardis seems to jerk upwards...or downwards. I can't really tell. Either way, it throws off my balance enough to send me to the floor. I catch myself with my hands, scratching them up, but ignoring the pain. If we're going to survive this flight, I need to concentrate on hitting the right controls.

"The blue one! The blue one!" He points at the button he caught me trying to activate before.

I don't give him time to rethink his instructions. I want to know what it does. I turn it quickly and we're suddenly falling.

I grab onto the railing closest to me, "What did it do?!" I scream over all the ear-wrenching noise.

"Its supposed to help us! But obviously it didn't! Fat lot of help you are!" He yells up at the Vortex, holding on to his own railing.

"Well, what do I do now?"

He points at one of the controls, "You'll have to pump it at a steady rate! That should at least slow us down!"

So I do just that.

"For how long?"

"Until we've stopped!"

Soon we land, ungracefully, of course, and I'm completely exhausted. I flop into the chair and the Doc sits tiredly next to me.

"You did alright. For a beginner. I expect more out of you next time."

I roll my eyes and scoff. "Keep talking to me like that and maybe there won't be a next time." I mumble.

"There will have to be a next time. We're still on the same planet. Just a different spot."

I give him an incredulous look. "After all of that? We never even left?"

He becomes agitated and stands, facing the center of the room, "We were close! We almost left orbit, but for some reason the Tardis won't let us leave."

Tricky girl...

"She can do that? But she's a machine!"

He turns to me, "She's a living machine. We can ask her to do anything we want, but if she has somewhere else she wants to go, or something else she wants to do, we can't stop her."

I let my head fall onto the back of the chair, "But why does she want us here? I thought you said this place was dangerous. If she knew keeping us here would be dangerous, why would she do this?"

He throws the big coat at me, which I manage to actually catch, and then goes back to standing at the console, "Get some sleep. We'll be trying again tomorrow."

I look at the coat and then up at him, frowning.

Again? Already? I don't know if my brain can take all this.

I don't argue, though. Instead I go lay where I was last time I slept. "You should get some sleep, too, Doc. Even Time Lords need sleep, don't they?"

He doesn't answer me, just continues with whatever he was doing. I sigh and try to relax enough to sleep.

He may not be the Doctor I know and love, but he's still the Doctor. I'll have to trust him. Even if his decisions don't seem logical at the time.

If I don't, the results could be anywhere from my dying to him being mad at me. Neither of which are very appealing.

I don't know if I do trust his decisions enough to follow all of his instructions, though...

I guess I'll find out soon enough...