The Heart Within

Send Me on My Way

"Well, I would like to hold my little hand. And we will run, we will, we will crawl, we will. I would like to hold my little hand. And we will run, we will, we will crawl."
- Rusted Root: 'Send Me on My Way' (The Theory of Flight [1990])

~**~

The TARDIS
Somewhere in the Time Vortex

Despite this being the second time she had been inside the TARDIS; Katy still couldn't get over the surrealness of being inside a living alien spaceship; ready to transport from one adventure to the next in the blink of an eye. But she also couldn't shake the feeling that she had already done this many times before. But that would be impossible, wouldn't it? She'd never set foot in this impossible, but bloody fantastic vehicle before now.

So why did it seem uncomfortably familiar?

"Right then, Rose Tyler. Katy Tyler. You tell me; where do you want to go?" The Doctor cheerfully called out to them from behind the console, beaming at them. "Backwards or forwards in time. It's your choice. What's it going to be?" He asked, looking between the girls inquiringly. Rose looked towards Katy, grinning from ear to ear.

"What do you think?" She asked her sister. Katy smiled indulgently at Rose before shrugging, not fussed where they could go. She could pick the next adventure.

"You choose first." Katy generously abdicated her choice to Rose, who practically floated on air before starting to mull it over herself.

"Forwards." Rose eventually announced, and the Doctor nodded; poised over an old-fashioned looking crank and grinned at her.

"How far?"

"One hundred years?" Rose answered, shrugging as if to say, 'I dunno'. The Doctor pressed a few buttons and spun something Katy wouldn't be able to tell you what it was, before pulling forward the crank. The TARDIS vibrated, pitched and rolled for a few seconds before stopping.

"There you go. Step outside those doors, it's the twenty-second century." The Doctor explained, pointing towards the TARDIS double doors.

"You're kidding." Katy scoffed, a little disbelievingly. The Doctor grinned, nodding enthusiastically.

"That's a bit boring, though," He frowns playfully as though mentally saying, 'we can do better than that, surely?' "Do you want to go further?" He asked, and both Katy and Rose nodded.

"Sure."

"Fine by me." Rose agreed. Another pull of the crank in the Doctor's hand and a few pitches and rolls later, the Doctor finally announces:

"Ten thousand years in the future," Katy's eyes widened in childlike wonder. "Step outside, it's the year 12005, the new Roman Empire."

"Shut up!" Katy blurted out disbelievingly, itching to run over to the doors and stick her head outside just to see if he was telling the truth. Rose smirked at the Doctor, who looked delighted and completely smug at Katy's genuine shock.

"You think you're so impressive." She observed, and the Doctor feigned offense.

"I am so impressive." He boasted slightly pompously, a clever little twinkle in his blue eyes. Rose grinned.

"You wish." She teased, and the Doctor rose to the challenge, willing to call out Rose's bluff.

"Right then, you asked for it." He did his mad dash around the console like before. "I know exactly where to go. Hold on!" He suggested, and the TARDIS gives a violent little shake that nearly tosses Katy and Rose off their feet and onto the metal grating underneath them, as she zooms down the time vortex. Once the TARDIS stops, the Doctor steps back from the console and folds his arms across his chest, looking superiorly at them.