Having A Bad Day | Doctor Who Fanfiction

3. Calling For Help

The Doctor looked down and saw that he was about 10 metres above the roof-turned-into-floor. He decided to hold onto the cable instead of letting it go and drop those last 10 metres, which (he had to admit) was very tempting since both of his arms were hurting and were doing their best to let him know that - successfully - but if he let go he could be in more danger than when he kept holding onto the cable. He knew that there was something horribly wrong with at least one of the TARDIS' stabilisers and that she could start spinning again, or worse.

Flip again!

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The TARDIS didn't disappoint him 1 minute and 4 seconds after the TARDIS had flipped, she flipped back to normal. He looked down and gulped. He was now hanging 500 metres above the floor. Apparently, the TARDIS was in such a shock that she kept changing the height of the roof. He climbed up the cable and sat on it, which was quite uncomfortable, but he couldn't keep hanging on his injured arms either. He pulled out a rope from one of his pockets and looked at the roof for the holes he used to hang a hammock on sometimes. He threw a hook with one of the ends of the rope in one of the holes and started to secure himself to the rope. Once he did that he threw the other end of the rope in the other hole. And let himself hang above the floor. This was at least more comfortable than the cable had been, so he could start thinking about fixing the problems.

The Doctor looked down at the console, thanks to his Gallifreyan eyesight he could still see all the controls and the screen clearly. He guessed that the TARDIS had landed somewhere upside down and that the gravity stabilisers were failing. At least, he hoped that they had actually landed. There was a danger of the TARDIS getting hurt more than she already was when they were still flying in space, they could get hit by a meteorite. That actually happened quite often, but the force of a meteorite would increase the chance of the gravity stabilisers to stop working at all since it was the gravity stabilisers that absorbed the force of the hit. What would be worse, was the fact that they could still be inside the time vortex. The TARDIS could experience a lot of turbulence when they were in the time vortex, the amount of turbulence did vary, though. With failing stabilisers, if there was too much turbulence the TARDIS could start spinning uncontrollably and hurt him and herself more in the process. She would stop if the amount of turbulence decreased, but that could sometimes take hours and he certainly didn't fancy that to happen.

He needed to know in which of the three aforementioned situations he was before he could start working on getting down safely and repairing the stabilisers with his injured arms. That were probably not the only things that needed to be repaired, but he figured that they were the most important at the moment.

Okay, let's see if I can operate the controls from up here.

He gritted his teeth as he pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. He aimed at the console and pushed the button. The screen told him that they were still in the time vortex and he cursed in Gallifreyan for the fourth time this day, when the interior of the TARDIS flipped once again.

The Doctor hadn't expected it to happen this time and was caught by surprise, he would've fallen again if he hadn't secured himself with the rope. He sighed in relief. Happily, he didn't get more injuries this time. Then he realised that he wasn't holding the sonic screwdriver anymore

Wait, where's my screwdriver?

He looked at the roof, which was the floor at the moment, and saw it lying there. It was out of his reach. Now he had no way of reaching the controls from where he was, he cursed once more. He decided to wait until the gravity stabilisers turned on again so that he would have the console below him again. He hoped that they actually would and hadn't given up on him like everything else seemed to have.

5 minutes later the TARDIS interior was still upside down. The Doctor concluded that the gravity stabilisers were officially broken. He sighed and said to the air "Apparently this isn't my lucky DAY!" he screamed the last words. He needed to get back up to the console, but he was in no condition to climb with his arms. That would be torture! Not that getting into turbulence wouldn't be, so he needed to prevent that and therefore he had to fix the gravity stabilisers very soon. He sighed once more, after this he wouldn't be able to use either arm for a few weeks, what if something happened! It wasn't very likely that he would be able to fight off a few Daleks without a single working arm!

The Doctor grabbed one of the knots that secured him to the ceiling when the TARDIS' interior flipped back to normal. "Hahaaa!" the Doctor said in delight "Looks like I still have a bit of luck left." He smiled, but when he looked down at the console his smile disappeared. The roof had become higher again. He was now about 1 kilometre above the console. Even for his Gallifreyan eyesight, it was almost impossible to see what was going on there. He also realised that he hadn't a way down anymore, the rope he had was only 700 meters long, and a 300-metre drop wasn't such a good idea, considering the risk of the interior flipping again, and the fact that he was already injured.

I need help!

But how would he get help? He could call someone. Where was his mobile?

Oh, yeah I left it on the console.

And it would probably be broken after what happened, he needed to remember to fix it preferably before someone tried to reach him, especially Martha, she would kill him if he didn't pick up his phone. So he couldn't call anyone with a lost and broken phone. He also realised that he needed to contact someone who could fix the TARDIS themselves since he wasn't exactly able to do so.

He quickly came to the conclusion that besides him only River would be able to go find him and fix the TARDIS. But he had no way of contacting her, there was no way that he could make a call on the TARDIS' phone either. and then he realised one more thing.

Oh, wait I'm still in the Time Vortex.

Despite the fact that River had a vortex manipulator, she wouldn't be able to lock on a TARDIS inside the time vortex, he sighted. He needed to find someone else who would be able to fix the TARDIS. Okay, he made a new list of people who could fix the TARDIS. He came to the same conclusion as last time, only him and River could fix the TARDIS and River couldn't get to the TARDIS and he was stuck.

......

Wait, was he? Well, of course, he was, but he could get another version of himself to help him. "That's WAOAA!" The interior flipped once again. He started working on getting another self here. If he could only push the distress button, that would alert the TARDIS closest to his and considering that his TARDIS was the only TARDIS left in the universe, it would alert the TARDIS of his other self. The distress button would only show up on the console if one or more vital parts were damaged. The gravity stabilisers were on the list of vital parts. So the only thing he needed to do was find a way to push that big red button that was on his console. He searched in his jacket's pockets and pulled out a red yo-yo, if he dropped this on the button after the interior flipped again, it would send out a distress signal to his other self and then all he had to do is wait. Now he needed to be lucky that the stabiliser hadn't given up on him yet.

And he was, 3 minutes and 56 seconds later the interior flipped again. He looked down and saw to his delight that the roof hadn't become higher again. He distinguished the distress button from the other controls, he aimed the yo-yo above it and let it drop. It was a direct hit.

The Doctor smiled.