Silence of the Doctor (11/SJ)

The Doctor was laying on his back under the console of the Console of the TARDIS making more repairs to his old ship. He often had to make these repairs due to how old the TARDIS was. This time he was tweaking the shielding, he had flown a tad too close to a sun on his last trip. Unlike the last time he turned of the shielding he made sure that nobody would accidentally try turn the TARDIS into Salvage. Unknown to the Doctor was that on the screen above his head a red screen on the computer screen popped up saying PROXIMITY ALERT: COLLISION IMMINENT!

The Doctor slid out from under the console on the wheeled mechanism he was laying on, he sat up and removed the darkened safety glasses he was wearing putting it on his forehead. He stood up, his still toward the screen.

"There..the shields should be back up and running again, I really need to be careful how close I get to those suns.." he said talking to himself. He was about to turn around to turn the shields on when the TARDIS shook violently. He fell forward grabbing onto the railing in front of him to keep him falling on his face.

"What? I made sure that I was out of the way this time!" the Doctor said standing up straight again as it got really bright in the control room. He shielded his eyes slightly looking over to the wall the light was coming from where he saw a crack that reminded him of the crack the he found in Amelia Pond's room. This one looked slightly differently though and this time he saw figure fall through it.

The TARDIS continued moving but the Doctor started moving toward the figure who was now laying on the ground grabbing onto things so that he didn't fall. As he got to the figure, he found it was a woman and he even recognized her..it was an old Companion..Sarah Jane. The Doctor shook her slightly on the shoulder trying to rouse her.

"Sarah Jane...are you ok?" he asked loudly so that she could hear him over the rumbling of the TARDIS.

She'd been angry with him. She hadn't been ready to leave the party, but he'd wanted to go with that smelly old scientist to look at some gadget. When he took the fellow on a proud tour of his TARDIS, Sarah Jane got notional.

She'd done some flying of the TARDIS. A little bit here a little bit there, and she did pay quite a bit of attention. In a bit of a miff, she'd gone back. She supposed things wouldn't have gone so badly if she hadn't of kicked that access plate. Something had sparked. She'd jumped back. To her horror, something cracked. A bright light poured through, and she cried out for the pilot.

Had she broken the TARDIS?

Not even sound could escape as she was pulled into the rupture. She clung there with her hands. There was no air, and the world went quite dark. It must have been then that she let go.

The strange rushing sound of it was still in her ears as the world began to bleed back to her. Her stormy deep sea hazel eyes rolled as she tried to open them. Then with a flutter of dark lashes she managed to focus, her gaze finding the man looming over her. He was saying her name, and he was a stranger, but he didn't seem to be. Not with that look on his face, the contained desperation in his voice.

"Hu? Wha-" She blinked again, really saw him, some clean cut man with a long jaw and a surprise of hair. Sarah Jane Smith reached back toward the light.

"Doc-tor!" She called for him. Something had happened.

The Doctor looked down as Sarah Jane moved slightly before reaching at the rapidly closing gap in the wall before it vanished all together. She heard her call out his name and he got a better look at her..she was younger than he had last saw her..far younger. That was when it hit him she was this age when he first had taken her on whirlwind adventures. The memories of her flooded into her mind as if a dam had opened allowing pent up water to flow forward.

"Um..Sarah Jane, I am not sure how to tell you this but I AM the Doctor," he said lifting her slightly checking her over to make sure nothing was broken. She had a small bump on her head but otherwise she looked fine other being a tad dazed. In his quick stroll down memory lane he had forgotten that the TARDIS was moving uncontrolled through space. That quickly changed when the TARDIS shuddered again knocking him down.

"Sarah Jane, I need you to get up...I need to get the TARDIS back under control," he said as he quickly stood up and with great difficultly made it over to the console. He started moving dials and flipping switches but nothing seemed work. He held onto the console as he moved around the console to the screen he grabbed it and looked. The words on the screen said that Emergency Procedures had been activated which made him sigh in relief that it was still working correctly.

The Engines hummed to life as the TARDIS has manually activated them to save herself from more damage and taking them to the nearest planet that had an oxygen rich atmosphere. After a few moments the shaking stopped and the engines stopped humming as the TARDIS came landed on the planet. The Doctor nodded slightly knowing that it would be safe now to talk to Sarah Jane, he walked around the console slightly looking to where Sarah Jane was.

"I officially welcome you back to the TARDIS Sarah," he said with a grin on his face and he slapped his hands together with happiness.

She came round at his voice. It was an unfamiliar voice, light as a viola, swooping and staccato. He was quite emphatic. Impossible, but emphatic. She frowned at him, her head managing to steady from it's bobble with a will on her part.

"Doctor! What happened to you!? Her whole head did another alarming bobble as he began to haul her to her feet. "What happened to the TARDIS!!?" This she found even more shocking. She was in some sort of undersea fish tank wonderland. Warm and inviting as it was, and no matter that it had that distant cinnamon and baked-bread scent (well, unless there had been a fire) This was the TARDIS. This was the Doctor. My word, he couldn't have been more than a few short years older than her. And what was he wearing?

"But what happened?" She had to confess, she couldn't quite hear him over the roar in her ears as the stood, her clinging around his waist and helping clamber up as best she can, even though her feet and nose are numb. She let him go to fly the TARDIS clinging now to the railing instead, her heart suddenly ablaze with worry for him. For he who wore scarves. What had happened to him? The Time Column was all blown completely out of proportion.

It came to a stop as they landed, and she sagged with relief.

The changed version of her friend looked rather elated. She found it strangely sweet and confusing.

"Hi!" She said out all in one breath. "Wha- Wha-?" she wanted to repeat all her questions, but was too taken aback this moment. She is flushed and the rose of her flapper silk wrap dress is a perfect match for it. She'd put on flattering war paint for the party. She'd lost her hat to who knew where.

The Doctor had heard Sarah talking and asking questions as he had been feverishly trying to make sure the TARDIS would keep intact so they wouldn't spend a lifetime floating in space. He noticed that Sarah Jane looked a lot more wobbly then he remembered, more than likely because she had been physically transported through time into the future. The first question she had asked was what had happened to him and then secondly she asked what had happened to the TARDIS.

"Oh right, this is going to likely be very hard for you to believe but since the last time you saw me..which was likely just a few minutes for you, I have gone through seven regenerations," he frowned slightly realizing that this was going to be a lot of info dropped on her.

"The TARDIS on the other hand is still the same TARDIS for the most part, the only thing different is the console room..and the desktop which changes with every regeneration," he said looking around the TARDIS which had become very familiar with over the years.

"As for what happened...I am not sure really, I was repairing the shields on the TARDIS and suddenly you were here and the TARDIS was crashing, are you ok?" he asked looking at her she was seemingly far more beautiful then he remembered her being.

It had to be the Doctor. No one else could bundle up such ridiculous amounts of information as though he were speaking about changing a tire on the way to the grocer.  After all he and she had been through, it was hard to panic.  The worst of situations tended to get resolved, and this one would have to as well.  He was here. She was here. It was what mattered, anything else could be fixed.  She rubbed the bump on her head with her fingertips as he gave her untold years of history to swallow with her frontal lobe, all in about 22 seconds.

Oh.  Time Lords.

But he was smiling at her. Then he frowned, studying her in that way he did.  it was absolutely eerie to recognize her friend, and not recognize him all at the same time.

"There wasn't any air."  It was just about then that her last actions came flooding back to her.  

"I was ~ " she started eagerly, then broke off.  Her dark eyes flickered to his.  Would she ever get used to his dark greenhazel eyes? They'd always been such bright blue. Now she stood her ground and matched his gaze. "I was kicking it.  I was mad and I was kicking it."  She looked defensive.  "It wouldn't go back where I wanted."

The Doctor looked at Sarah Jane as it seemed like she was getting back to her normal self. Which was a good thing, though she seemed to get rather defensive as she spoke. She said that she was kicking it because she was mad and it wouldn't go back where she wanted. He raised an eyebrow slightly as he wondered what it was.

The Doctor pulled his sleeves back down to his wrists buttoning them up. He grabbed the purple frock coat that he had thrown over the railing near him before looking deeply into Sarah Jane's eyes. He broke the look to straighten his bow tie before walking over to her.

"Right...so what exactly is the 'it' then?" he asked somewhat curious though he had a guess.

She took a step back.  Not because his face was new to her, but because she knew who it was for certain.  She knew he was fussing with is clothing to dissipate an urge to be more strident with her.   He was probably counting to ten in some 6 dimensional way.

He was tall as he came close. As tall as he'd ever been.  The bow tie was oddly comforting.  She'd always liked the practical librarian that lived inside him.  It was a part of him that didn't think much about violence. She tilted her chin up to look evenly at his shockingly handsome young face.  Her mouth popped open and she didn't even know it as she contemplated answering his question.  The pros and cons.  Well, in the end, she very much wanted to eventually get home to her simple little TARDIS and her scarf swinging swashbuckler.  So she better tell him.  

Her jaw skewed a moment as she tried quickly to come up with a perfect lie and couldn't. Last ditch effort.

"The panels around the base of the control column." Her hand made a rather random indication toward it. "Over there . . . about"

The Doctor followed Sarah Jane's hand as he looked control column. He turned back to her and smiled slightly at her, she had kicked the TARDIS because she didn't take her where she wanted to go. The Doctor could hardly blame her, he had many of times got angry at the TARDIS for doing the same thing.

"You know..I was told by the TARDIS herself once that she doesn't always take me where I want to go..she takes me to where I NEED to be," he said with a small smile. He remembered that day, he had almost lost the TARDIS that day but thanks to the TARDIS she was saved.

"So, she brought you were you needed to be," his grin getting larger as he looked down at Sarah. He quickly moved away to look at the screen again, seeing that the TARDIS had entered the repair stage which could take quite awhile. He went back over to Sarah before speaking again.

"Since you are here and the TARDIS is repairing herself, how about we go explore outside and have an adventure like we used to?" he said not really awaiting her reply, he took her hand and started to pull her toward the entrance of the TARDIS.

Indeed, he was as odd as usual. She didn't know if he was speaking about metiphore, insanity, or something that had actually happened. Mostly, around the Doctor, one must cultivate a suspension of disbelief.

She was mostly just glad he didn't seem angry with her. In fact, he was giving her a smile worthy of puck. Over the years, she'd learned to have a constitution like that of Alice through the glass. Six impossible things before breakfast. She had a fleeting worry for the Doctor on the timeline she'd just left, but frankly, time was the Doctor's arena, and he could figure that part out for himself.

Or the TARDIS would anyway, self healing. Surely then, she could return.

Where she needed to be. Where she needed to be.

For her? For him? For some strange reason they could not possibly know yet.

Such existentialism seemed unimportant when he took her hand. When he smiled like that at her. It was the Doctor offering to open the TARDIS door and expose a mystery. A whole world would lay out before them with just a push of the hand. A new puzzle, a new scent. Flowers no human had ever seen. A sky that was a color like no other sky. Planets were like snowflakes.

"Well, as long as you promise not to dump me for some smelly old scientist if we find one? We'll explore?" She wasn't dressed for it, but what the hell. She was already going with him as she made her conditions.

The Doctor raised his eyebrow slightly at the questions Sarah Jane had asked him. They seemed oddly specific which lead him to see if he could remember an instance in which he left for a smelly scientist. He shrugged slightly not being able to remember anything like that, though he he always remembered less and less.

"Of course we will explore, talking is boring you know," he said smiling and squeezing her hand slightly as he said as opened the TARDIS door. He was expecting the outside of the TARDIS to be maybe a forest or at least a field. What he saw instead was the TARDIS parked right in the middle of a cracked street. The pair was surrounded by tall metal buildings, the sun gleaming off the non-rusted parts of them and the non-broken windows. The place looked like it had been deserted for quite a long time.

"Well..that is not what I was expecting, what do you think Sarah Jane?" the Doctor asked looking back at the woman with a smile.

She actually went so far as to close her eyes until the door was full open. She laughed, low when she saw it.  It was so human. So very expected.  Well, though now that she'd seen it for more than a quarter of a second, she realized how deserted it was.  How worn by weather and loneliness.  It looked quite modern.  She absorbed this from the vantage of the doorway, then caught the Doctor's eyes with her own.

His words made her laugh.

"I would have guessed you're never surprised anymore." She let loose a trail of laughter. "I'm surprised that I'm always surprised."  She brushed past him to step down onto the pavement.  A little worry shot through her.

Her pumps made a grit and click sound on the worn pavement.

"This isn't Earth is it?"  She didn't want this to ever happen to Earth. "Where are we?"

The Doctor looked over at Sarah noting that while she spoke her face went from happiness to more worried. She had asked him if this was Earth and if it wasn't where were they. He had to admit that it did look eerily similar to what Earth would look like in the Future. The Doctor stuck his tongue out taste the air slightly before squatting down and running his fingers over the cement of the road. He stood up and turned to her.

"No, this isn't Earth, the Air tastes different and the dust feels odd as well," he said before turning back away. He scanned the buildings they looked like they had been here for years but there was also something..new about them. He knew that the TARDIS would try to land in a deserted planet, while this planet did seem deserted something felt..off.

"Come Sarah, let's go find out what's going on," he said as he started to walk to the nearest largest building. He looked up and thought he saw a figure in the window but when he looked away he seemingly forgot what had caught his eye. He shrugged slight and continued to walk waiting for Sarah to follow.

She was a flare of color in the bleak landscape. It had a beauty all it's own, this quiet place of the long straight lines of civilization airbrushed gently with weather and history. Now that he said it, she mulled the taste in her mouth and nodded, thinking it was indeed a little 'odd'.

Broken glass made everything glitter a little, though the dangerous piles of it were easy to avoid. She gave a slow turn in the street, seeing if she could spot the edge of this city anywhere, but there were just more and more vaulting buildings until the sky was half choked with them.

If there had been some massive explosion to break out all the windows, then where were all the bodies?

The Doctor called to her, and she gave herself a little shake. She had almost forgotten she was hanging out with a later incarnation of her friend. She trotted up to him, knowing she'd make it another hour in these shoes at best, but for now she was enjoying the added height, and the sharp little echos she was getting back as she claimed the sizable street. Powerful.

"Whomever it was, do you think they left because they were escaping whatever broke the windows? It looks like the bugged out, to me." Half her smile was excitement for this mystery they'd stumbled into, half because she was shading her eyes against a little thread of daylight as she looked up at him.

The Doctor walked slowly listening for anything, he had noticed that since he had walked out the TARDIS there hadn't been a sound. This made him even more apprehensive as almost every planet he ever visited had some sort of noise of some kind. He was really starting to get nervous but on the outside he tried appear calm.

He heard Sarah ask if he thought that the people who had lived here left due to what had broken the windows. The Doctor stopped walking to look at one of the broken windows, he guessed that Sarah thought an explosion had caused them to break. He thought of one problem with that theory though that not all the windows were destroyed just some of them.

"No, I don't believe something unnatural made those windows break..if that was the case all the windows would be broken," he said without even turning around to look at her. He looked up again noting that the sun was starting to go down.

The Doctor wordlessly continued walking until he ran into a pair of doors with broken glass in them. He looked through them, he saw some what looked like very torn and worn leather chairs, one was laying on its side. In between the two chairs was a metal end table that had a built in lamp that was flickering slightly giving the room eerie shadows. In the middle of the room there was a pedestal that had an image flickering in and out. From what he could tell it was a Human Female that was in her twenties wearing a dress.

"That's a plus, somethings are still working, maybe we can find out where we are," he said as he slipped through the opening in the doors left by the glass. The Doctor reached into his coat and pulled out his sonic before walking over to the pedestal before he used his sonic on it. The picture flickered more before it stabilized and the woman started to speak.

"Welcome to Oblivion, we hope you enjoy your stay. It has been 0 days since the last death," the woman spoke in a sweet voice but the information she gave was not comforting at all. The message repeated several times before the Doctor shut it off and looked over at Sarah.

"That doesn't seem very comforting does it?" the Doctor said with a small frown.

He was like a planet to her satellite. She had her own explorations to do, but always, somewhere in her vision, was the Doctor.  As he moved along, so casually did she, like friends in a library.  As she looked around, she kept expecting to find the debris of intelligent life.  Pocket plunder.  Empty snow cones.  Money.  Newspapers, whatever form they might take.  

She supposed there was furniture here and there, but other than the deserted empty buildings, the occasional dander of such, and a fine layer of dust, she wasn't finding much.  In her search, she almost missed the Doctor stepping through the shattered remains of a doorway.

Typical.  

She caught up to him.  If something had caught his attention, it was going to be a better catch than the detritus she'd been poking at.  When she reached him, she was taken aback to see he was with some woman. An instant later, she realized it was just an image.  Instantly, Sarah Jane liked her more, and hoped she was interactive.

"Well, hello." she said, half under her breath to their unexpected company.

She wished she hadn't, though it might have been equally informative anyway, addressed or not.  Sarah Jane hoped the next time through, there would be some sort of update.

"That doesn't seem very comforting, does it?" her friend mused.
"It certainly is an odd choice for a greeting. Do you suppose it used to list other things as well, but death is the last thing left on the list?  There certainly wasn't anyone born here today."

"If the power is working in here, they can't have been gone that long, can they?  You know, what I'd like to do is go find a library or a museum or some such, then we'll know who we're dealing with, eh?" She tugged his sleeve a little.

There was something about this room she didn't like.  Some odd dusty smell with an acrid edge.   It was faint, but you couldn't miss it.

The Doctor paced slightly trying to figure out if he was missing something. He heard Sarah Jane ask if he thought if there was more to message at some point and death was all that was left. He looked up slightly taking that question into his head with the other information he was thinking about. Sarah on the other hand kept talking asking if they had power here they couldn't have been gone long, she also mentioned that she wanted to go find a library or museum to find out who they were dealing with. The Doctor stopped and looked over at Sarah.

"The things in here that are still working have an internal power source that is obviously dying so, I would guess they have been gone for awhile," he said rubbing his chin slightly trying to think. The image was of a human female so he could only assume that the people that were here were human.

"Well Sarah Jane...as a reporter your should know that the image we saw was human..so it is safe to assume the people that were here were also human," the Doctor said with a small knowing grin as he rested his hand on the pedestal. As soon as he did that the image of the woman appeared again, the Doctor backed away slightly in surprise as he was sure he turned it off. The Woman turned and seemingly looked straight at the Doctor.

"The Silence will fall, The Silence will Fall," the woman started to repeat over and over again. The Doctor's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped slightly. He backed away again now very much not happy about what was going on.

"No..no, I took care of you before," his voice slightly fearful now knowing what else they were dealing with. He quickly looked around to see if he could see any Silence..not that he would remember if he did.

"Sarah Jane..we need to get away from here right now," he said moving over to her and grabbing her hand, pulling her quickly away and outside. He had planned to get back into the TARDIS but as soon as the pair got outside, they both saw that the TARDIS disappearing.

"No..no..no! Come back here!" The Doctor yelled as he ran over where the TARDIS was looking around slightly. He figured the TARDIS felt like she was threatened somehow so essentially left him and Sarah stranded.

"Ok..let's not panic, we need to find somewhere safe for right now," he said as he noted that sun had now gone behind the buildings and it was starting to get dark. He looked around slightly at all the other buildings around them.

"Sarah..do you have a torch on you..and would you happen to have a pen or two?" he asked looking at her hopeful.