The Long Way Home(Doctor Who/Steven Universe crossover)

Strangers in a Strange Land

The Doctor held onto the control panel for dear life. For the second time today, the TARDIS was being tossed about in a thundering rage, as lights flickered and sparked throughout its massive interior. Once things appeared to have settled down a bit, The Doctor turned his attention to a very rattled looking Pearl, who immediately pulled her fingers from the telepathic circuits and turned to The Doctor as if the universe itself had just imploded (which it probably had, worst case scenario).
"Oh my stars," shrieked Pearl. "Doctor, what the heck was that!?"
"How should I know?," the Doctor responded, looking as sour as ever.
Pearl's shocked expression was quickly replaced by one of annoyance. "Excuse me, but what is that supposed to mean?"
"Well, technically speaking, I did just put you at the helm of the TARDIS' present course", The Doctor snapped back at her. They probably would've continued their little disagreement, but the TARDIS suddenly came to a crashing halt, throwing both Pearl and The Doctor swiftly to the ground.

Pearl cautiously pulled herself off of the ground, practically quivering from head to toe and gasping for breath.
"We-we've landed", she noted in a cautious, quivering tone. The Doctor heaved himself onto his feet and added, "Well, looks like we're all still in one piece", he muttered to himself.
"The TARDIS just needs a bit of a fix up and then we can try that again." But before the Doctor even had time to collect his thoughts on their next action, Pearl had bolted for the twin doors of the TARDIS. The hysterical gem burst her way through the doors, before bending over to once again try to regain her breath. She seemed to be standing on soft ground, which was already a big relief for her. The Doctor followed her out through the open doors, yelling, "First rule, I always open the door first! You could've fallen face first into a black hole there." Pearl straightened up and turned to face the Doctor, straight faced and totally impatient. "Very funny," she grumbled. The two travellers began to take in whatever new location they'd been dropped in. All around, Pearl and The Doctor were surrounded by what looked like a grassy field. The long, green blades stretched up to their ankles and gently danced in the quiet, smooth wind. Above them the sky was completely obscured by thick, dark clouds. Pearl and The Doctor let themselves stand there, dumbfounded; both of them were expecting something a lot more "unearthly." As Pearl turned around to face the Doctor again, her eyes nearly bugged out of her head in surprise. The Doctor tensed up for a second, ready to face whatever had the thin Gem spooked. But when he turned around all he saw was the familiar police box shape of the TARDIS.
"Oh," he muttered, a bit surprised. "I suppose I didn't get around to addressing...that. Long story short, yes, that is the TARDIS and the police box is a disguise." All that was left was for Pearl to say the "five magic words" that anyone else who has seen the TARDIS for the first time just loves to utter.
"....Are we still on Earth?", Pearl uttered meekly. The Doctor just stared back for a second. "Well, it is usually more impressive when you come in through the front door."  The Doctor turned on his heel and trudged back through the doorway of the TARDIS. "Never mind," he called to Pearl over his shoulder. "Let's find out where we've been dropped off."

The Doctor returned to the TARDIS control panel, with Pearl close behind. The Doctor pulled out a screen from the panel as it flashed with coordinates. "The good news is we are definitely on Earth," The Doctor stated, sounding somewhat relieved, before returning his attention to the screen.
"And the bad news?", Pearl chimed in with a skeptical look. The Doctor turned back to her and simply said, "I don't know if we're anywhere near your 'home'. But this should be able to tell us." The Doctor flicked a nearby lever, releasing a strange hum from the centre of the great machine. The humming began to distort, crackling and breaking into total silence. After a few seconds, Pearl was nearly thrown right off of her feet, as the TARDIS' controls began to break out in explosions of sparks, as the very centre of the ship let out a piercing shrieking noise. Pearl took a step back; dare she say it, the ship began to sound almost as if it was...in pain. The shrieking only grew louder, and louder before finishing off with a loud crash! The lighting of the TARDIS dimmed itself to a near total darkness and the mechanism at the centre of the control panel was frozen in place.
"Doctor, the ship isn't too badly damaged is it?", asked Pearl. But the Doctor didn't answer. He just stood facing the controls, frozen in total shock.
"Doctor? Doctor!"
The Doctor whirled around to reveal a face that seemed disturbed but also annoyed, as if Pearl had just caught him in the middle of something very important and private.
"Do you know what's wrong with it?", Pearl questioned. "Do we need to run a diagnostic? Why is-"
Without another word , The Doctor bolted past the slim Gem and out of the TARDIS again. As he pushed past her, Pearl could almost hear him mumbling "This shouldn't be happening", under his breath. Pearl followed suit, but The Doctor was already way ahead of her and continuing to walk further away from the TARDIS.
"Doctor, where are you going!?", Pearl hollered out to him. "Shouldn't we be repairing the ship!?"
The Doctor heard her loud and clear, but still he marched onward. All he knew were three things; they were stranded, he didn't know where they were and the TARIDS was dying.

Finally coming to a stop, to collect his stressing thoughts, The Doctor noticed something peculiar about where he was standing. The grass around his ankles had taken on a sickly grey colour and the blades had become incredibly dry and wilted. As he looked into the horizon, The Doctor could see that this a patch of this limp, grey grass. Not only that, but this greyness appeared to be spreading. From the left to the right of the wide field, every last trace of green was being covered like a massive spill of dark oil had started leaking into field. However, the Doctor was quickly broken from his thoughts by a pale hand, which firmly grabbed his shoulder and whirled him around to face Pearl; out of breath and out of patience.
"Don't think that you can just take off without me", she snapped. "I still need to get back to my team and-".
"How do you even know we're on the same Earth?", The Doctor asked without even waiting for an answer.
Pearl just crossed her arms. "I'm pretty sure I'm familiar with the geography of this planet, 'doctor.'"
"In that case, maybe you can the unique colour changing abilities of "Earth's" grass to me", The Doctor retorted dryly. Pearl was confused for a second, but quickly began to notice the wilted grass that was quickly spreading around their feet.
"The telepathic circuits were completely tuned to your thoughts", muttered The Doctor. "It was only going to whatever version of Earth you wanted it to take you to. What was going through your head the moment we were taking off?"
"I was focusing on getting back to my team, like you said!", said Pearl in pure frustration. This quickly faded, however, as Pearl looked back at The Doctor, her expression crestfallen. "How they'd get by without me..."

The Doctor, relieved to finally be having some "useful" information on hand, was prepared to keep up his questioning. But as he stared at Pearl, he could see that her attention had once been grabbed by something behind him, as she tilted her head past his shoulder with a look of high alert.
"What is it now?", he grumbled. The Doctor turned, but what he saw this time was a far cry from the any police box. A large, dark sphere was hanging there in the clouded sky and and it's centre was a massive yellow eye.
"Oh, no", gasped a very stunned Pearl.

Cliffhanger! I'm sorry to leave you hanging on this chapter, I'll try to get the next one out a little quicker. But, then again, I can't really make promises. I'll be sure to leave you all enough time to ponder over the meaning of the "yellow eye."