Trust Fall (11, Brooke)

The Doctor grumbled to himself as he lay below the deck of the console, leaning back in a jumble of wires and tubing that had formed a makeshift swing. His sonic was in his teeth, muffling his words, as his hands were busy trying to find the source of some questionable sparking. He winced as another few shot out at him and singed his sleeves. The TARDIS groaned and he rolled his eyes, taking the sonic out of his mouth momentarily. "If you want, I can just leave you like this!" he shouted back, earning another pathetic sounding groan in response. "Then stop complaining," he mumbled, putting the sonic back in his teeth as he returned to his work. 

After another few moments of focus, thankfully without the interruption of sparks, the Doctor's face lit up as he located a wire with an exposed bit of metal. "Ah ha!" His shout of victory was punctuated with the sound of the sonic hitting the floor after he'd dropped it from his mouth. "Oh," he frowned, glancing down at where it had landed. Disregarding the tool for now, he kept track of the broken wire with one hand as the other reached into his pocket for some electrical tape. It took a minute of rummaging and disturbing a small family of ants, but he found it. He fumbled with it one-handedly for a moment before sighing and trying to rip off a piece with his teeth. It worked, more or less, but he probably should have just let go of that wire. 

Spitting the roll onto the ground next to the sonic, he reached back up and wrapped the sloppy, tangled piece of tape around the exposed wire. He grinned at his handy work before swinging himself clumsily out of the hammock he'd tangled himself in. He was about to pick up his sonic and tape when he heard the TARDIS groan sickly again. "What, that wasn't it?" he questioned, looking up through the glass floor at the bit of console he could see. The lights flickered and dimmed a bit in response. 

"... Well that's not a wiring issue," he frowned, gathering his things and climbing back up to the console. "Come on, old girl, tell me what's wrong," he murmured to his machine, caressing the fixtures gently with a concerned expression on his face. His attention was grabbed by something across the room, however. A bit of chalk on the wall. Frowning, he hurried around the console to get a closer look, stepping around and ignoring the coat he had discarded earlier.

He swiped at it with his finger and licked it off. Smacking his lips and grimacing, he decided it was, in fact, just normal chalk. How did it get there? Looking down the corridor, he noticed another mark. Brandishing his sonic, he stepped carefully down the hall, following the trail of chalk marks until he found...

"... Hello. Is it morning already?" The Doctor frowned, glancing at his watch before deciding that, no, it was not. He narrowed his eyes at Brooke and, subsequently, the chalk in her hand.

The Doctor, noticing the girl's unease, backed himself down a bit. Poor girl really did rely on Tommy, didn't she? "No need to worry, it's just a little chalk," he cooed, approaching her slowly as if she were a little frightened rabbit. "It's a rather good idea, actually. I told you you're clever, didn't I?" He smiled at her, eyes twinkling. He shoved his sonic back in his pocket in an attempt to appear less threatening. Sure, she could get along just fine with Tom's guidance, but one of these days, she might be put in a situation where she really needed to trust him to get out of it. Slowly, he told himself. Baby steps.

"Come on, follow me," he started, turning back in the direction he'd come from. "I can bring you back to the console from here and figure out why she's playing games with you. She's probably jealous because she's not as clever as you are," he teased, listening out for the TARDIS' response. Oddly enough, she remained silent. His expression fell a little at that. Something wrong was happening and he wasn't fond of it. Slapping a grin back on his face, he turned his head over his shoulder and beckoned towards Brooke. "We'll have you back to bed in no time!" The Doctor turned back and began down the hall towards where he came from. "Or wherever it was you were going..." he mumbled to himself with a bit of amusement.

The Doctor's face began to droop as the girl spoke to him. Her self esteem was really suffering. He made a mental note of a planet to visit later - one where she would, hopefully, feel a bit better about herself. He could tell she wasn't in a place to push a message of self worth right now, but maybe he could help her see it herself... 

He perked up at the mention of books, however.

"Oh! I should show you the library, then!" He grinned, spinning around and walking backwards so he could face her as he talked. "What sort do you like to read? I like the 'unrealistic fictions'," he smirked, making air quotes with his fingers. "It's funny, the amount of things people think are impossible. It's like they forget they have a future," he remarked, spinning back around and picking up the pace subconsciously. Perhaps reading would be what they bonded over, then. 

The Doctor slowed to a stop, however, when he realized they'd looped back around to the same spot. His gleeful expression faded to one of worry, as he took in the marked up walls around him. "I was..." he mumbled, looking around the area thoroughly. "Stay here a moment," he ordered, speed walking down one hallway. It was only a moment later that he ended up returning through another, a deep scowl on his face. "Why's she doing this?" he grumbled, walking up to a wall and pressing his hand to it. "Lady, what's wrong? What's hurting," he whispered to his ship, sticking his ear up against the wall to listen for any unusual groaning. Everything was eerily silent, he decided. Quite worrying, indeed. He looked up to the ceiling as the lights flickered again, this time leaving them in complete darkness for a moment before returning, dimly. 

"Right. We need to break this loop," he declared, popping up and pulling his sonic out of his pocket. He scanned along the wall and examined the results with a scowl. "She's doing it consciously. She's keeping us here on purpose," he explained, starting to pace around the room in thought. "But what for? Why keep us here? Why..." he struggled, smacking his head as if that would help the process along. His face brightened as he got an idea. "She's trying to protect us. Brooke!" he exclaimed, turning towards her rather suddenly. "What else have you got on you? Anything sharp?"

Brooke became a little more intrigued upon hearing him mention a library.
"Oh? There's.. a library?" Despite her pathetic effort to sound casual about it, she was clearly very interested in the knowledge that there was a library here. She smiled faintly when he mentioned about the unrealistic fiction ones. "Yeah... well, Jules Verne wrote a lot of stuff that people thought was fictional, at the time.. I mean, the Nautilus, you know? and.. yeah. All those things." He surely knew about all that stuff, so why tell him about the "fictional" things Verne wrote about that now existed.

And then she remembered she hadn't answered his question about what she liked to read. "Oh. And, uhh.. I read basically.. anything?" She shrugged in answer to his question. "Well. Except those stupid, sappy, trashy romancy things.." She added. "Those.. they don't really count as books." She thought of Twilight and shuddered a little. To expound a little more on 'anything', she added, "I like fiction, sci fi, history.. adventure, mysteries, classics.." She trailed off as she glanced around the crossway, and watched him walking off to figure out what was wrong. This was.. not good. She was feeling more uneasy. What was happening? Watching him, he really did look concerned. Maybe this was for real a problem thing happening.

She stayed quiet while she watched him put his ear to the wall and speak to the ship. He might have thought she didn't hear him, but most people thought she couldn't hear them when they said things whispered or in the next room or two over. She was getting very uneasy about this situation, and then the lights went out. She tensed and pressed herself back against the wall, hastily digging in her bag until her hand closed around the handle of a flashlight. By that time, the lights were back on, but dimmer than before. She still pulled out the flashlight, in case it went out again, and held onto it tightly. She didn't like being in the dark with a man she didn't know that well, however nice he seemed.

"L-loop?" She questioned quietly. "What's.. going on?" she added timidly. "Why would she.. trap us?" She asked timidly, then she jumped with a slight flinch, quickly backing up a couple steps from him and clearly startled, when he suddenly turned toward her with his voice raised. Was he yelling at her? Did she do something wrong? He didn't seem like he was about to attack her, but she was a bit confused by his request. Sharp? What did he want something sharp for? She regarded him warily for a moment, guarded and tense, before glancing at her bag thoughtfully. "Maybe? I mean.. like, what for?" She asked uncertainly. "I might.. have a pocket knife?" She offered, transferring the flashlight to her left hand while her right dug into her bag again, soon locating a small pocket knife. After pulling it out, she waited for him to tell her why he wanted it before she would turn it over.


((BTW. This is her outfit today:
))

The Doctor noticed her anxiety and frowned, taking a step back. Had he done something to scare her? "If she's trying to protect us," he began, wandering towards the middle of the room, "then she'll have to let us out if we're in danger. Now of course I'm not actually putting us in danger," he reassured, holding his hands up in a defensive pose. "But! I think she might let me into the med bay if...." He trailed off, eyeing the blade in her hand. 

He inched closer to her slowly, trying to help her put some trust in him. If they needed protecting, though, he imagined this was probably the type of situation to put some hustle into. "I'm not going to touch you with it, promise. Just need to nick my arm and convince her to let us out of this hallway. Here." He rolled up his sleeve before holding out his arm to her. "You can do it, if you don't want me to have it," he offered, searching her face with a gentle expression. He couldn't tell if she would be the kind of person to prefer that or not. Maybe she didn't want that task on her hands. "Won't hurt me. Much. Okay, well," he huffed, crinkling his nose. "It won't hurt you, at least. That's something, eh?"

The Doctor froze as the lights cut out, making sure to keep his distance from Brooke, lest he scare her further. He watched as her flashlight flickered pathetically before going out. Holding out the sonic, he tried to provide a little light for the room, a bit of a grimace on his face. It wasn't very bright. His eyebrows shot up as he was knocked off his feet, bracing himself as he tumbled into various surfaces. He cursed himself as he dropped the sonic, hearing it clattering around pathetically. Tom must be taking one hell of a nap right now. 

"It's the artificial gravity!" He grunted as he was smacked into the ceiling. His hearts ached as he heard the poor girl's panting. Actually, it was a bit concerning. It sounded worse than just pure fear - she was wheezing. God, did she have asthma? The realization came as a bit of a slam - mostly because the gravity had begun working again and he'd just landed in the corner of the room. "Brooke? Brooke are you alright?" he called, feeling around the floor blindly for his forgotten tool. "Have you got an inhaler on you? Ooh, ah ha!" he grinned as his hand brushed the cool metal of his screwdriver. Fumbling with it for a moment, he held it up in triumph, illuminating a very small section of the hall. His joyous expression was lost as he spotted Brooke's silhouette, however. "Seriously, though, have you got an inhaler?" he frowned, grimacing at the pathetic wheezing noises coming from her direction. His concern quickly morphed into an idea, though, and he pushed himself to his feet with a hopeful smile.

"You've got to hear her, old girl," he pleaded to the ceiling, arms outstretched. "She needs help and you know it. Let us through? Pretty please?" The Doctor waited a moment before hurrying and peering down one of the branching paths, a wide smile appearing on his face at the sight of a faint blue light peeking through the cracks of a doorway. The lights in the hall flickered back to life, if very weakly, and he thanked his lucky stars his sexy thing still had this much fight in her. 

"Brooke, come on! And bring that chalk!" he shouted behind him before rushing off towards the new door.

The Doctor swung open the door, smiling brightly at the interior of the med bay. Good, he didn't have to bleed out to get here. He had a feeling the ship wouldn't appreciate that one. Then again, his new friend was suffocating, and that wasn't too great, either. Taking big strides into the room, he rushed past the cot and to a set of drawers near a sink. He hurriedly pulled open several before he found the one that contained inhalers and a couple oxygen masks. Snatching one out, he held it up to his face and rotated it quickly, making sure this one was for humans, before zooming back to Brooke's aid. 

"So, mouth around the hole, push down on the canister, deep breath," he inhaled dramatically, mouth puffing up and posture straightening, "hold for five seconds," he tried to get out without breathing, "and out," he exhaled, posture drooping a bit for effect. "Trade you for the chalk?" He smiled, holding out the inhaler for her to take. "Promise it's safe. Tommy wouldn't have brought you here if it wasn't," he tried to reassure her. "Well..." he trailed off, thinking about their last endeavor, eyes drifting away from her face as he did so, "Mostly safe. Except for the zombies and the dying space ship," he amended, looking back to her eyes.

"No, no, it's not out of fuel," the Doctor began, taking the chalk and stepping into the dim hall lighting, finally returning the sonic to his pocket. "Just refueled her around a century ago!" He called over his shoulder, stepping up to the opposite wall and making a big circle with the chalk. He paused. "Okay, maybe she's starting to run on empty," he mumbled to himself. He began to draw a line from the bottom of the circle, running it down and across the floor and back up next to the doorway on the other side. "I can fix her," he nodded confidently, drawing another circle connecting to the line. He paused again. "Probably."

He strutted back into the room and closed the door behind him, tossing the chalk in Brooke's direction. "Hold on to that inhaler, by the way." He pointed at her with a concerned look on his face. "Never know when you might need it." With that, he spun around and hurried towards the computer system sitting on one of the counters. He leaned over it, typing frantically into the keyboard in an attempt to connect it to the monitors in the console room. "I think... it's a computer virus..." he explained distractedly, frowning and thumping the monitor with his hand. A new image showed on the screen and he brightened considerably, returning to his typing. "But I don't know how it could have gotten here, unless..." he turned back towards Brooke, a flash of realization crossing his features. "Ohh... it's a living virus, isn't it old girl?" He called up to the ceiling, moving away from the computer. "That's why she was protecting us," he murmured to himself.

"No no no, not you," the Doctor reassured, waving his hands as he struggled to explain. "Wouldn't have said she was protecting 'us' if I meant you," he continued, making air quotes. "So," he clapped his hands, returning to the computer. "The circles outside are to mark where we are. When we get out of here, I want to see if she's moved us. Also," he paused, turning back around to face her with a look of confusion. "You're in a space ship that's bigger on the inside, can travel in time, and move its rooms around and you don't think I could be a century?" He placed his hand on one of his hearts in offense. "I'm wounded. Anywho," he shook his head, resuming his search on the monitor. "I'll try and do a search on the life signs in here and see if I can find anything that isn't meant to be there..." 

With a dramatic tap of the enter button, the Doctor sent a bright grin in Brooke's direction. "Everything'll be fine, see!" His expression fell when he read the results, though. "Oh. Okay, taking that back, everything'll probably be fine," he corrected, frowning as he leaned in to see the specifics. He was expecting to find only a few more life forms than the last time he checked - those Traxion fish could get rather busy - but he nearly gagged at the number on his screen. There weren't just a few extras, there were thousands. "... Good news and bad news time." He clapped his hands as he spun back around to Brooke. 

"Bad news, there's a whole colony of whatever this is and it's centered in the console room, which we can't get to right now. Good news," he gave a weak smile, "Is that you're almost breathing again. So that's... dandy..."

"Well a colony can be really small," the Doctor began, gesturing with his hands to indicate their size. "Think colony of ants, but even smaller. Like, like, like..." he stuttered, thinking for a moment before popping back up to look at her. "Like germs. They're like germs - very small, very messy," he decided, glancing back at the monitor to reaffirm the bad news to himself. Oof. This was going to be rough. Speaking of rough... He turned back towards Brooke with a pitiful look. "Take another puff of that inhaler," he instructed before beginning to rummage through the med bay.

"So, essentially, the TARDIS has contracted a bug and we can't do anything about it because it's alive and very far away. I don't think I'll be able to convince her to let us help her, though..." he thought out loud, shutting one drawer and opening another. A solid frown was etched into his features. He didn't really know how to fix this without being able to touch it. Even then, what would he do about them? He couldn't see them, clearly, and how was he meant to fight something invisible unless he knew where it was?

He had to control where it was.

His mouth opened a bit as the idea dawned on him, and then he grimaced. This was going to be ugly. "Brooke, do me a favor and check outside. Circles still there?" He called behind him, grabbing a syringe and a length of rubber to tuck into his pockets. Closing the drawer, he straightened up, reaching up to open the cabinet. He sorted through the vials inside with a thoughtful expression before finally snatching one up and tucking it in his other pocket.