Things Change (Treela,4)

"Stop! Come back here!" the officer shouted at the thief as he and his partner ran after her.

The two had been simply patrolling the area on foot when they'd heard someone shouting about being robbed. They'd seen it was an owner for a convenient store and the thief in question was a girl. Of course, being the good police they were, immediately chased after the girl wearing a long yellow jacket to bring her in.

What they found surprising was how quick and agile she was, managing to maneuver her way through crowds of people and even hop over things like benches and nearby trash cans in order to get away. They managed to keep up but only just, mainly being more clumsy as they kept following after her. It was at least easy to keep track with her given her yellow jacket among the crowd but boy was she agile.

The girl attempted to lose them through a heavily trafficked street at one point. Cars and trucks and the like were all packed together tightly and honking horns as the traffic wasn't moving fast enough. The girl took the easy rout of hoping over car's roofs and hoods as she made it to the other side of the street. Still the officers took the less effective rout of slinking between each car but still managed to stay on her track, only now they were further off.

They finally felt she'd sipped up when the girl turned into an alley that both knew lead to a dead end. They hurried with what strength they still had in their legs with the intent of cornering her before she could leave the alley. They made it and knew she was trapped but they were shocked to see she wasn't there.

The two looked around to try and see how she could have escaped. There was no where to jump and no where to hide, not even behind a trash can where a cat was cleaning itself. The were confused as ever, asking how she did it.

Instead of standing around the two ran off to find her, the cat watching as they left before jumping down from the trash can it was perched on. With no one around to see the cat changed back into the girl, Treela, who laughed as she watched the officers run off.

She stuck her tongue out before counting the money she stole, saying "Just enough for a ticket out of here and off to Rio." She sighed as she started walking before saying to herself "I think I'll stick around there for a few years before coming back here.....or maybe head to Paris."

Deep in the heart of the TARDIS, beyond thousands of libraries and Turkish Baths, past age old console rooms and future console rooms, the Doctor was tinkering with a small electronic box in a laboratory. Smoke had engulfed his head, his furry mop matted down by an age old pair of welding goggles. His toothy grin was encased in a serious expression, hidden under a furried brow and a brief glimpse of a tongue poking out in thoughtful search of truth and answers.

In the background of the laboratory was a highly expressive operatic LP, playing Die Zauberflöte. The familiar arias and high ranged pitches helped the Doctor concentrate on making sure he knew what he was doing, and kept his concentration on high. Finally, the Doctor's little task was complete. He put the mysterious box back together, letting a sigh of relief pass through his lips. He walked over to the phonograph, lifted the needle, and walked back to the console room with the box in hand.

Beads of sweat formed on his brow, and as he returned to the console room, he pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed himself. The console was still, and the room was silent. But this never worried the Doctor immediately, for he trusted the old girl. She never steered him wrong, and always brought him to where he needed to go.

He walked over to the console's vector screen and checked the coordinates. The screen told the Doctor that they had landed in London, which was practically homebase for his operations. UNIT was here, and he desperately needed to check in. The Brigadier was a smart man, the Doctor always said, but he needed a professional opinion once in a while. The Doctor grabbed his scarf and his grey tweed frock, slipped it on, grabbed his green velvet hat, and fluttered out the door of his TARDIS....

Treela had only made her way round the corner before seeing more police officers. She froze for a moment before waiting to see if they'd noticed her. Thankfully they had not but there was still the possibility they would, and that they had been informed of her stealing from the others who were chasing her.

Slowly Treela took a few steps back, not seeing the police box suddenly materialize before a man with a scarf walked out of it behind her. Realizing she was in a decent spot out of sight Treela looked around to try and find a means of hiding it out. Quickly she saw the old looking police box and thought it would make for a decent spot, at least for the time being.

And no sooner did she think it did she hear the police walking towards her. Quickly she hurried over and found the door was slightly ajar, making it easier when she slipped in and closed the door. She didn't realize at first where she'd stepped into before peaking out to make sure she wasn't followed.

After taking a breath of relief Treela felt the box as a bit...spacious. She turned and realized where she was standing, in some sort of control room that was far too big to fit inside a police box. Her jaw dropped as she realized how alien it all was.

"What the....?"

The Doctor turned to face the young girl who had entered the TARDIS unexpectedly. The girl, who couldn't have been any older than her mid-20's, turned to face the Doctor. And as always, she was immediately greeted by the unusually large interior of the TARDIS. And like always, she was agog and aghast by the size of a larger interior that didn't seem to want to fit into the unusually smaller exterior. The look on her face, the wonder and amazement, was the thing the Doctor missed most of all.

"Umm..pardon me, but I believe you have the wrong Police Box, my dear." The Doctor, who had his back facing to the console, immediately turned around to the console panel facing nearest to himself. "But then again, I don't believe in accidents, nor do I believe in coincidences. What can I do for you....uh, I didn't catch your name?"

The TARDIS' time rotor began to whizz and whir, bobbing up and down, grinding and wheezing in the usual familiar way it always did. The sound echoed through the TARDIS like a church bell in an enclosed space. The Doctor flipped a switch, and the TARDIS' time rotor slowed to a steady bob. They were momentarily safe and out of any sort of harm's way.

Treela was still looking around when the strange man asked her name. She was walking and spin at the same time to get a full look at the place, eventually reaching the control panel and looking down when the Doctor asked her name again.

"Huh?" she said before recovering and saying "Oh it's.....Julie. Julie Myers."

Being that she still wasn't sure of what to make about all this, Treela stuck to the name of the original host that she was in the form of. It was always a ploy she used for when meeting with other humans, obviously a name like Treela seeming a bit off. In any case she looked around more, surprised by this, before a big smile grew on her face. The odd noises that echoed only help to add to the growing anxiety to the question she hoped would be answered correctly.

"This.....this is some sort of alien spaceship isn't it?" she asked with a eager growing look on her face. "An actual alien ship?"

"Well....Julie Myers....this is indeed a spaceship. Well, more of a space craft, really. Well....perhaps more of a companion than anything else. Aren't you, old girl?" He gave the TARDIS a pat-pat-pat, and then turned back up to the girl.

"This craft is my TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. Its a delicate piece of machinery, grown in the time fields of Gallifrey, and brought to me by chance. She's a beautiful thing." The Doctor seemed engrossed in his boasting that he almost completely ignored Treela.

In an instant, he snapped up to Treela. "So, Julie, you never did tell me what you were running from."

By the time the Doctor had confirmed that she was in a spaceship, Julie was already jumping and laughing. She'd finally found something not of Earth, and to think it was a police box the entire time. If she'd know that were the case she'd have tried hiding in them more often.

"THIS! IS! INCREDIBLE!" she shouted, holding her arms up. She took a moment to relax before looking around and running up to almost every available spot, commenting on this. "Look at this! It's amazing. The technology to fit all this in a box must be so advanced. Did you make this? Are you an alien? Oh of course you are. Unless you just know some and they gave you this box. Either way this is so great!"

She was so caught up in everything she was seeing she didn't hear his question. Instead she was like a child at Christmas, seeing everything in such a grand way. She eventually came back to the control panel and looked around, asking what each of the control devices did.

The Doctor rotated around the Console, watching her dancing around in some sort of mad tarentella. She seemed unusually unoverwhelmed by the amount of alien technology that surrounded her. This sent an uncalled for smile to the Doctor's face, watching her as she approached him with her barrage of questions.

"This box was grown, not made. Very delicate stuff, you know. I am the Doctor, a time lord from the planet of Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. This is the time wave meter, which reads out radiation from the time vortex and from the different planets I go to. This is the calibrator that coordinates colors by alphabetical, horizontal, and Dewey Decimal system number. This is the switch that opens the vector screen, and this is the lever to the door."

At last, the Doctor wheeled around Treela, getting in front of her, stopping her from advancing any further. He pointed down to a glowing turquoise button that glimmered with a bright luminescence. "And this little button, Julie Myers, is a real treat. Would you like to know what it does?"

The Doctor never waited for a response before pressing the button. In an instant, the young girl was surrounded in a binding blue light. "This is the button I use to install a truth field around suspicious people who happen to barge into my craft. And you, my dear, are far from suspicious people."

With each answer the Doctor, as he was called, gave to her, Treela's smile and enthusiasm grew bigger and bigger. She'd only heard little stories about the timelords from her parents, mainly because so little was known about them by most race apparently. But knowing she was in the ship of an advanced race of aliens like the timelords only made her heart beat faster. And then knowing that traveling through time was an option was an even bigger plus, seeing as she'd read so much into human history but not enough about the galaxies history.

However her smile quickly faded when the Doctor threatened her with the turquoise button. She'd never heard of Truth Fields, but then obviously humans hadn't advanced enough for her to know the limitations of technology. Besides if the rumors about timelords was true, then they could make practically anything.

She tried to sya calm as she looked the Doctor in the eye and said "Look, about me coming in, it was an accident. I swear. I was just hiding from some guys looking for me and boom; I'm in your special blue box. But if you're not going to scare me with this truth field, if that's what you're trying to do."

The Doctor's gaze narrowed. His hand hovered over the button as he listened to her story, appearing take all of the information in as he could. Whether or not he believed it, was up to her to decide.

He nodded and mhmed, giving her visual confirmation that he had absorbed all of the information in her story as he could. When she had finished her story, the Doctor stood silently, watching her with hawk-like precision. Perhaps there was something afoot behind his twinkling azure eyes, or perhaps there was something more sinister behind his toothy ear-to-ear grin. The Doctor, who appeared calm and collected, slammed the button he had been hovering over since they had started talking.

The console room became dim and quiet. In the corner, a small plush chair popped up, complete with (what looked like) a delicious looking lunch of seafood and crystal clear water. The Doctor turned back to the girl. "This isn't the first time i've encountered a Zygon, my dear. In case you're wondering, you've got the pupils wrong. They're circular, not slit. Then again, it takes practice to become perfect, eh? Luckily I never really needed to try. Rest easy, you're safe with me. And feel free to...uh...drop the costume if you need? The pool is down this corridor and to the right. Can't miss it. Oh, and would you care for a jelly baby?"

When the Doctor had reached for the button Treela flinched before seeing what happened. She looked around as everything went dark before seeing the chair with lunch pop up behind her. She'd turned to see this before hearing him say how he knew she was Zygon.

Treela turned back with a stunned look as he went on saying how her flaw was in the eyes. She lowered her head before slipping her pink sunglasses down over her eyes to hide them, embarrassed by her mistake. Despite him saying how she didn't have to worry she still felt a little exposed given that he could see through her disguise, even if he offered to let her drop her disguise and offer her treats.

She finally looked back to him and said "If I ever do drop it, I'd prefer to do it in private. I....I don't like people seeing me. That's all." She quickly checked her watch, seeing she still had an hour, before asking "So you've dealt with my kind before? Was it good terms or bad?"

The Doctor smiled at her patriarchally, turned to console, and twisted a knob. The console room dimmed a bit more, and through the dark, visible shapes of a bed set popped up. Through no offense, he seemed to not hear any of her questions. Perhaps they were best asked later?

The Doctor fiddled around in the console room for a minute more, then entered the corridor near the table. The door swung back and forth, then came to a quiet halt. The console room was quiet once more, filled with the quiet humming and buzzing of the console. The TARDIS almost seemed to enhabit a gentle rocking motion as the TARDIS flew through the time vortex. All was quiet on the western front...


NEXT ADVENTURE BEGINS!