Work Text:
It was simple. One moment, Number Five was running down the mansion stairs two at a time and then the next he was suddenly standing in a room with a swimming pool. Five blinked, whirling around and gasping for breath. The floor was wet, the water a glistening blue. It was lit by the night sky which held a strange planet with rings surrounded by stars overhead. There was no sound, only silence and his heavy breathing. Had he teleported? He must’ve, there was no way for him to just suddenly be one place and then somewhere else unless he’d jumped. But why? How hadn't he noticed? And where the hell had he gone?
Five’s shoes squeaked as he started for the door, pulling it open. He frowned, glaring down an empty silver corridor, lights pulsing. The ground was warm, the air humming. He wanted to go further in, but the pull was definitely some sort of outside force. The room pulsed, lights flickering as the hum built in his ears, thrumming in his bones. The lights flickered again, as if beckoning him forward, eager and willing- calling to him. Five swallowed and started down the corridor.
It twisted and turned, he had to have passed a hundred doors. He peeked in a few of them to find libraries, kitchens, and bedrooms. He walked up multiple flights of stairs and down a slide, down the railings of a spiral staircase and over a quaint wooden bridge that was surrounded by darkness. It was virtually endless. Five was almost convinced he had tripped and hit his head too hard. But then he heard voices, echoing up from somewhere ahead in this strange purgatory. Five broke into a run. The silver metal hallway ended abruptly as he stumbled into a warm, golden orange room and found a familiar man pressing buttons, “Of course I’ll be back dear, I just need to make a quick pop to- oh hello!”
He blinked, eyes wide as he stared at Five. Five’s brows furrowed with recognition, “You! You’re the man who lied about being in the gas company!”
The man, the Doctor if he was remembering correctly, blinked with surprise, “Oh! And you are…?” His eyes lit up with a gasp, “Rude boy!” He laughed, pointing, “Look dear it’s rude boy! However did you get in here?”
Five whirled around, “Here? Where’s here?”
The Doctor pulled a lever and the room jerked. Five grabbed at the railing, clinging to it as the room tilted, “What the fuck-!”
The Doctor pressed another button on the console, the strange shuddering wheezing noise quieting as the room stopped pitching like the deck of a boat in a storm, “You’re in my TARDIS! That’s new. We must’ve been nearby to drag you away. I’m sorry we didn’t mean to pick up hitchhikers.” He patted the console as if this were normal.
Five glanced around the room warily, “TARDIS isn't a word.”
“Is too.” He paused as the lights seemed to flare, the ground groaning beneath them. The Doctor huffed, “Okay, well, it's an acronym. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. Half a word,” He amended generously.
The man, the Doctor peered around to face him, “Where were you going, ah, rude should-be-dead boy?”
Five glowered, straightening as he examined the well-lit room with no small amount of suspicion, “It’s Five, asshole. You picked me up? Here? How?”
The Doctor yanked another handle and Five stumbled, grabbing the edge of the console again. The thing, the TARDIS, hummed and the Doctor laughed, “Five then. And I told you, last time I believe, about your big complicated biological saturation, yes?”
“That bullshit about artron energy?”
“Oi! That was the truth!” He straightened the lapels of his jacket, “And yes, I’ve been investigating. You should be fine. Somehow they've bonded with you, with your DNA. Which other than being completely impossible is no trouble at all. Just a minor,” the man grunted, yanking another lever, “Traffic setback. Or homing beacon,” he ran to the other side of the console hitting several buttons, “Or a GPS system that makes me go where I don’t want too!”
The TARDIS made a grinding wheezing sort of noise and Five grimaced as, with a massive thud and jolt, the noise ground to a halt.
The Doctor laughed, brushing a hand through his hair, “There. Where did you say you were from? I assumed sometime after we met, but that still leaves me a bit wobbly on the exact bits.”
Five frowned, “I came from exactly where you showed up. The academy.”
The man laughed, waving his hands about. Five was beginning to suspect that this doctor did quite a lot of that as the man floundered around speaking and gesticulating as if his arms were connected to his mouth, “Er, I mean, what time? What date?”
Five blinked before answering, “June 15th, 2019, about four pm.” Then, with a glance backwards, he strode for the double doors at the far end of the room.
The Doctor shook his head, “Um, I wouldn’t do that if I were you-!”
Five flung the doors open, pausing as he stood on the threshold of the man’s, what had he said, ship? That made sense now. It was a ship- a spaceship. Beyond the doors and down delow him was the earth, suspended in all its glory among the stars, turning slowly and steady onwards.
Five breathed in despite all odds, slowly reaching out a hand into outer space. The air was cold, empty, and completely impossible.
He turned, voice quiet and firm, “How am I not dead?”
The Doctor smiled, excited but matching his seriousness, “Extended the atmosphere to the outside. I wouldn’t jump out though, still null gravity. Wouldn’t want you to end up floating away and outside of our little bubble. That would be very bad.”
Five’s glare was still present and the Doctor was beginning to suspect that was just how his face normally looked. The boy stepped back in slowly, looking him up and down, “…Who did you say you were? The Doctor? What does that mean?”
“The Doctor. That’s my name.”
“No,” Five held up a hand, “We’re in space. In a spaceship . And... You were asking me about dates earlier. Can you, can this, travel through time as well?”
“Why, yes, of course.”
“Without a briefcase?”
The Doctor seemed completely baffled, “Why would I need a briefcase to travel through time?”
“What about the Commission?”
“Who?”
Five’s lips thinned, “If you’re an anomaly in the time stream, the Commission is always sure to keep an eye on you. So that they can preserve the preferred timeline.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, “What, like the Time Agency?”
“The what?”
Now it was Five’s turn to look confused. The Doctor stepped forward, down the stairs until he was facing him, brows furrowed, “You really shouldn’t be possible, but that's just a worrisome. Who are these people? The Commission?”
Five crossed his arms defensively, “They’re not a problem now. What I’m wondering is how I’ve never heard of you?”
The Doctor waved a hand this time, “Easy. I erased myself from every database in the universe. I’m a ghost in the machine. No one has heard of me anymore. What I’m more curious about is why you’re still alive and how you can possibly travel through space on your own.”
“And time.”
“What?”
“I can travel through space and time,” Five’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, “So, again, how come I’ve never heard of you?”
The Doctor’s mouth opened and closed as the ship hummed. The Doctor straightened, cocking his head as he breathed with some sort of awe, “Oh, of course! Of course.”
Five’s brows furrowed, watching him. The Doctor’s brows raised, mouth opening again in a strange sort of ‘oh.’ Five snapped finally, the ship’s lights flickering, the ground groaning ominously, “Care to share with the class, Doctor?”
The Doctor started, “Right, yes!” He clapped his hands, skipping back up the stairs to the console. The doors closed with a creak and Five, throwing a cautious glance backwards, started after him, examining the buttons and levers curiously. The Doctor hit another switch, pulling down a screen to examine some readings, “The TARDIS, my ship. She’s living in nearly every way.”
“Sentient?” The Doctor nodded and Five glanced around, the near constant hum in the ground rising in pitch suddenly given new meaning. His brows furrowed, “Who the fuck are you?”
The Doctor turned to face him, suddenly serious, “I told you, I’m the Doctor. I’m a time traveler- the last of the Time Lords from the planet Gallifrey, I’m twelve hundred years old, and the people of earth are under my protection. And now I’m wondering how a time Commission was never on my radar.”
Five raised an eyebrow, “Aliens? Well, it’s not any weirder than a fish in a suit.”
The Doctor had returned his manic focus to the ship, “Good, now, the TARDIS. She’s living, the last of her kind. And, more importantly,” he held up a finger, something like delight in his eyes, “She’s been reaching out to you for some time now in the vortex. She’s been treating you like a fellow TARDIS, entirely unaware that the reason you’re not responding is because you’re not actually one. But time travel? Blimey! You might as well be one.”
Five blinked, glancing at the console and then back to the Doctor, “But- I’m not a ship! I’m not even close to a ship! Look.” He vanished and then reappeared on the other side of the centerpiece with a pop and a flash of blue, “I don’t even travel like your ship.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, “The TARDIS can materialize and de-materialize nearly exactly like that if she likes. It certainly doesn’t help that you’re saturated with the particles that power her. Unfortunately, despite the very many differences, you resemble a TARDIS quite a lot.”
Five’s eyes narrowed as the Doctor waved a hand, “I wouldn’t worry about it, though! I’m more concerned about changes to the timeline and this Commission. The most that will happen with the TARDIS is that you’ll be her favorite.”
“I already took care of the Commission. I stopped them,” Five’s lips thinned as he said it and the Doctor paused, examining him carefully.
Five glowered darkly before the alien turned back to the console and asked, “They are indeed, an agency in charge of preserving the timeline, yes?”
“That’s what I said.”
“So they must have time machines, correct?”
“Briefcases, yes.”
The Doctor smiled, “Well then, my young friend, they aren’t ever really gone. Surely, you know by now, that time is relative.”
Five bristled at the young comment, “I know that, asshole, if we travel back in time, we risk changing the future.”
The Doctor waved a hand, already having learned not to take his anger personally, “Yes, I’ll stay away from fixed points. Finding them should be rather easy, if these briefcases are anything like vortex manipulators.” He was already typing on a typewriter embedded into the console. He kept glancing at the screen he’d pulled down, brows furrowing. The typewriter dinged and his eyes lit up as he seemingly found what he was looking for, “Gotcha! A little more bulky than vortex manipulators, I can tell. Probably hardier, am I right? Easier to carry more passengers?”
Five glared, being petulant on purpose, “I don’t know. They’re briefcases.”
The Doctor pointed, “Yeah, I forgot you didn’t know about vortex manipulators. How many people can these briefcases carry?”
“I’ve seen them take up to seven.”
The Doctor snapped his fingers, “Ha! That’s certainly an impressive improvement. Now, how long, by the way, do these people travel using your ah, briefcases?”
Five shrugged as he shoved his hands in his pockets, examining the screen. It was unintelligible, covered in strange circular lines and markings, “Five years was the usual contract.” He frowned, still trying to decipher the markings, “No one tended to go past that, most retired afterwards.”
The Doctor nodded, “If I’m correct and I’m fairly sure I am,” he studied the readouts, “This energy pattern left across time… They seem hardier than vortex manipulators- more dense. But I suspect they still have all their flaws.”
At Five’s questioning glance the Doctor added, “Constant exposure to the time vortex is, inevitably, fatal. Using them sparingly is recommended unless you have something sturdy like the TARDIS for protection.” He rapped his knuckles on the edge of the console, “Or they’re you know, you. Since you’re not dead yet I have to conclude you’ve got something biological going on. However, I suspect that the briefcase employees without your advantages did indeed retire but, ah, in the more permanent dead type of retirement.”
Five cursed with a wince, “Shit. I’m not surprised.”
The Doctor wrenched down a lever and, with a large clunk, the constant humming stopped again. The Doctor skipped past him towards the doors and Five followed, still frowning as the man clapped, “And here is your stop!” He flung open the doors and Five blinked in the sunlight. They were in the backyard of the academy, just across from Ben’s statue.
Five stepped out and then turned backwards, brows furrowing as he examined the big blue police public call box before him. It was the bluest blue in the world and something itched at the back of his head, as if he’d somehow seen it before, but he couldn’t place exactly where. Otherwise, it seemed an entirely odd thing to have made a spaceship out of. Five craned his head to the side realizing that it couldn’t possibly fit everything that he’d seen inside it. The Doctor grinned, obviously aware of what was running through his head. Five scowled, returning his attention to the alien instead of the ship that was most definitely bigger on the inside, “You said the earth was under your protection.”
The Doctor nodded with a smile, “I like to think so.”
“Then why didn’t you stop the end of the world in 2019?”
The Doctor blinked with confusion, “Excuse me, the what? ”
Five nodded with a small smirk, “Right.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and started for the academy.
He could hear the Doctor’s sputters, further away now, “The what? ”
The splutters got further away and then he heard the thump of the door, closing off the Doctor’s noises of surprise. As he reached the mansion's back door, the wind picked up behind him, a curious wheezing noise reverberating in his bones. It sounded like a breath and a whisper and strangely familiar all at once. He turned to look before he went inside, his hand on the doorknob.
The TARDIS, Doctor and all, were gone- almost like they had never been there at all.