Chapter Text
Tag, you're it.
The first moment, she was atop a precipice, letting go. The next, she was on a TARDIS, very much alive.
No. Not quite.
This wasn't the warm embrace of her TARDIS, but that's not to say it wasn't "hers". It was the Doctor's, all right, like how one would refer to the sonic screwdriver. However, this TARDIS was cramped. Like the puny neckline of a shirt, or on-the-spot confrontations.
It was also cluttered of relics from the Doctor's past. The relics were even playing an even game of tug-of-war, a fight between nostalgia and a bittersweet reminder that even for a Time Lord, time will pass anyhow.
This is the tale of the foolish Time Lord. She thought stealing a time machine was all she needed to make sunsets last forever. She always did. She hoped it will. Until it doesn't. That's the funny thing about hope—it always runs out.
"I'm not alive, am I?" the Doctor asked. The TARDIS let out a struggling, but audible hum. She sighed. "Old girl, where have you taken me?"
The TARDIS hummed again.
Then a small fire sparked.
The Doctor removed her coat and extinguished the fire with it. Crisis averted.
An ID dropped on the floor from the force of her coat.
Her brows met. She bent down to pick it up. There it was. Hallamshire Police. Yasmin Khan. Probationary Officer.
The Doctor turned around, spotted a drawer, and stuffed the ID inside.
The Doctor turned back, and spotted Yasmin Khan. She was wearing the same black top, mustard-colored jacket, and denim pants she last saw her in. Yaz had eyes wide open.
"Yaz," she said, letting out a shy smile. Yaz roamed her eyes around the foreign TARDIS, and the Doctor—from her blonde head to her brown boots.
For a moment, no one let out a breath. The Doctor played a mental game of choosing between investigating where they were or talking to the former companion.
"Hello."
There it was.
"Ah. Hi. Right," the Doctor replied. She displayed that nose scrunch, exactly the one she displayed when she once skydived to a train in Sheffield.
The Doctor roamed around the claustrophobic TARDIS. So much for 'bigger on the inside'. She clicked the mismatched, sometimes duplicated buttons and levers of her old TARDIS consoles on the walls and the ceiling.
Despite of her efforts, there was no movement.
She could see Yaz in her peripheral. Yaz was looking at her, she was sure. Yaz slowly took the Doctor's sky blue coat from the floor and sat down at the small chair. It was one of two chairs in the TARDIS, both facing a miniature replica of this Doctor's warm time machine. Its yellow glowing arms was analogous to that of a campfire.
"Sorry. Carry on," Yaz said, now looking at the miniature TARDIS. Her eyes glistening, reflecting the yellow glow from the metaphorical campfire. Pause. Yaz turned to her. The Doctor looked back to the levers and buttons.
There was the sounds of the time machine. A remembrance. An audio recording of what once was.
"My best hypothesis," the Doctor broke the silence and paced around, just like she always did during their adventures when she was caught in her own strings of information. For a second, it was 1903, they were on the office of Nikola Tesla, and she was rambling on about Tesla's genius. She said, "We're not really on a TARDIS. Well, there's this thing. Big thing. Very big thing. If time is memory, then memory is a time machine—Ah! I got it!"
She sprinted to other side of the TARDIS. There was more of her old stuff. Old sonics. Old clothes. Old knick knacks. That was it. She turned to Yaz with a big grin that reached to her ears. The grin that screamed 'eureka'. "I think. I think my future incarnation did something that formed a TARDIS. I don't know—there's theoretically many ways to do this, but baseline, they did it. Moreover, this is not the TARDIS, it's a Memory TARDIS. This TARDIS is made out of memories—Oh! Oh!"
Eyes wide. The Doctor covered her mouth with both her hands. She continued under her breath, "Yaz, we're memories of the TARDIS. This TARDIS is made out of stories, and it craves it. That's it!"
Yaz let out a small smile. Pause. Her smile drooped down again, and pinned her gaze back at the miniature TARDIS.
"Like a camp," she said. "You tell stories in front of the campfire."
"Exactly!" she exclaimed. "Smart. Right on the dot."
Silence. Once again, the only person who talked was the Memory TARDIS. Hums. Vibrations. The Doctor sat on the chair next to Yaz, keeping her arms in her lap. Yaz was still looking at the mini TARDIS.
The Doctor has been somewhat good at guessing games. Maybe it was applicable for a spelling bee of all languages in the universe (not that she would be guessing, 'cause she'd actually know the answer), or random facts about a galaxy many light years away from Earth. But, she'd never be able to guess what anyone really meant. Or wanted. Or asked for.
The Doctor let out an exhale.
"I suppose," the Doctor continued speaking, "we must tell stories."