The Evergreen Man

Boo.

I am going to try. K? Gonna try.

Not tonight, but hopefully sometime in the week.

*waves*

“Doppelgangers? Those are never fun.” She fussed with her hair yet again, shilly-shallying between having it all back from her face or leaving a curl or two free. “Still,” As he didn’t appear to have enough notes quite yet, it would seem, “if you think it is one, just ask them where my birthmark is.”

“Your. Ah. Your birthmark?” He coughed to clear a sudden, inexplicable dryness in his throat. Perhaps it was a remnant speck of dust from that desert planet they had visited yesterday. That would certainly explain the throat dryness, though not the ever-so-slight increase in pulse. Odd, that. 

Still, though, there was a very important question yet to ask. For the sake of thorough observation, you see. “And, ah, where might that be? Because it’s certainly not currently visible.”

The Doctor arched a studious eyebrow at Thera, and most certainly did not file all of those details about her appearance away in his mind for anything but pragmatic purpose. Whatever that may be. “I’m simply committing to memory. Attention to detail is absolutely essential in our travels, Thera! You would be amazed at how many times a doppleganger has tried to fool me into believing it’s one of my companions.”

@therapardalis from here.

He would have been delighted with her immediate reaction - that being to instantly pull her hands up and back away from the door, eyes scanning rapidly for any tell-tale boxes or wires that she might have somehow missed on first check.

In other words - she fell straight into it, head first.

And then there was a pause, a set of her brow and a warning sideways Look. “I’ll startle you if you’re not careful. Where’s the Sonic?”

He fished the aforementioned Sonic from out of his coat pocket, flipped it in the air, and caught it neatly. “Here in hand,” he told her, still grinning despite her glare. “Sit tight, won’t be a minute.”

The device squalled as he pressed its button, and the lock on the distinctly un-alarmed door disengaged.

When. I. Finish. My. Coffee! Second cup, yes, but that was hardly the point. A small hint of annoyance grumbled in the back of her mind, just as quickly hushed; yes, the TARDIS might have mentioned this, but then why would she when Thera wouldn’t have known what to do about it? The cup was still in hand as she turned toward the doors, pausing literally at her lips when the lever produced only a dull clunk instead of a crack of daylight and air.

“That’s new.” Thera pointed out, her tone a little less amused all of a sudden. “I’ve been coming and going as I please since you arrived.” After, of course, a frantic bout of rummaging through several drawers worth of life-junk for wherever she’d left her key. She stood still for the space of a long breath, fighting down an instinctive animal response to being trapped, and set her teeth down hard. Time for a bit of that resilience now, hm?

Another second, thoughts spinning and clicking together in a way that might or might not bear any fruit, before her head turned and the frown that had formed was sent his way. “The only immediately visible difference is that you’re awake now. Are you sure it’s her who has the virus and not you?”

“Me,” the Doctor scoffed, “Have the virus? Don’t be ridiculous. I feel quite well and chipper, now that I’m awake again.” 

But then he thought about it. His eyes narrowed again as he studied the patterns swirling in the static. “Although. The TARDIS and I share a telepathic bond. If she is truly ill, I would be as well. And vice versa. Your idea does have merit, Thera, but the question is...”

“Hmm.” There was a perhaps misplaced but very definite hollow in her cheek, the kind that was trying hard not to be amused. “Maybe she’s a bit annoyed with you, too.” That was well more than half joking, and she didn’t expect the words to properly register with him regardless. As companions went … well, she knew she wasn’t the first, but she did think she was probably more resilient than most. She’d dealt with enough chaos in her own life to be able to handle his.

Which wasn’t to say she hadn’t welcomed the distraction of dissuading assorted plant life from around the outer walls - Mother did like to reclaim anything that sat still for more than a little while. For a second or two her glance flicked between the Doctor and her empty cup, deciding on a refill before facing … whatever. “Not good, how?”

“Not good,” the Doctor said, “As in, the TARDIS has somehow contracted a virus.”

He leaned forward, eyes narrowed as he gazed at the static flickering across the screen. It would not have been visible to the human eye, the twelve-dimensional fractals embedded in the static, but it was clear as crystal to him.

A message, in cypher, left for him by someone who had somehow found access to his TARDIS. But whom?

“I think,” he said slowly, “That it would be the better part of valour to remain grounded for the time being.” He frowned deeply. The thought was torturous to him, but he didn’t want to risk the TARDIS, not if she had been tampered with. Whatever this virus was, it had had ample time to infect the ship’s systems on a potentially catastrophic scale, and he needed to begin the arduous process of running diagnostics on a corrupted system using only twenty-first century technology and whatever loose equipment he could scrounge from the TARDIS’ storage compartments. “At least until we can discover the cause of this little malfunction.”

First, though, he needed to decipher the message. He reached for the lever that opened the front doors. “Thera, would you be a dear and retrieve your laptop for me?” He tugged on the lever.

The doors did not open.

@summerxmelodies liked for a starter.

“I’m terribly sorry to bother you, but might you tell me what year it is?” The Doctor smoothed his hands over the lapels of his velvet frock coat, then slid his pocket watch free from where it was hanging by a gold chain from a button hole. 

He peered at the watch’s face as if it would give him the answer to his question. “I was aiming for the twenty-fifth century, but I’m afraid I may have taken a wrong turn somewhere. It’s my ship, you see. She can be quite obstinate and set in her ways. I do make an effort to communicate, but once she gets an idea in her head, there is simply no deterring her.”

“A little worrying, yes.” Thera returned to the coffee she’d left, frowning slightly into the cup as it proved cooler than she recalled. “I thought,” Soothed herself more accurately, in the face of anything more useful, “that if it were a desperate problem she would have told me so I could understand - if there was anything I could do.” There’d been no claxons or untoward flashing lights, just the monitor that she’d figured out showed his still-steadily-beating hearts.

There was no point peering over his shoulder so she stayed where she was, sipping her half-cold drink and waiting for the verdict to be found. “She may have just wanted somewhere safe to sit and wait.”

The Doctor glanced back at her and gave her a warm smile. His poor companions, always finding themselves in situations they had never been prepared for. He always did what he could, but even he couldn’t see all possibilities. “She would have found a way to communicate,” he assured her. “She’s quite sentient, you know.”

He hit a few buttons and punched a few keys, and the display unit gave an ungodly squawk before its screen fizzled with a gaudy dance of multi-colored, patterned static.

“Oh, dear,” he said again. “This is very not good.”