Doctor Who fic: Interior Design (1/1)

[locker_monster]

Title: Interior Design (1/1)
Rating: G
Word Count: 432
Characters: TARDIS
Timeline: Post-"The Doctor's Wife"
Summary: The TARDIS really hates it when the Doctor deletes her rooms.
Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Written for who_contest's "Undesirable" challenge.

Deleting rooms for thrust. She hates it when he does that. Does he think her rooms just grow on trees?

(Well, they sort of do, she supposes. Her Architectural Reconfiguration System does look like a metal tree.)

She used to be so much smaller inside, with only a few living spaces off of the console room when she first left Gallifrey, but she’s grown so much since then. Building rooms is what she does for fun when he and his friends are off traipsing around a planet and getting into trouble. She may not be able to interact with the outside world like a typical humanoid, but she does have mastery over her own internal structure.

This is what she gets for presenting all of these majestic chambers to him. He gets spoiled for choice and the next thing she knows, the atomized remains of her carefully crafted scullery are being used to hurtle them into a bubble universe.

(And she had gotten the arrangement of her corridors just right, too. Now she’ll have to spend another five decades putting everything back in its place…)

He never consults her when he does do a mass deletion! Not once has he stopped to think if she would miss the Zero Room, squash court seven, or the karaoke bar. That squash court could have been her grand masterpiece; the most perfect squash court in the entire universe. Now it’s just subatomic particles, floating around space on the solar winds.

(She’s well aware that she doesn’t have a mouth and even if he did consult her, she wouldn’t be able to give a reply, but it’s the simple gesture of asking that matters.)

She’s wise enough to empty disused rooms of their contents before they get ejected into space. So much gets left behind by her passengers and it never feels right to repurpose any of it. They could come back for their belongings someday; stranger things have happened in her travels. She knows she shouldn’t be so sentimental about their forgotten clothes and trinkets, but it’s all she has left of these fleeting friends.

(What he forgets is that she mourns, too, when they leave. Maybe that’s why he so quick to delete so many of her rooms. Too many memories linger within the walls.)

But as annoying as it is, deleting parts of her architecture, they are just rooms in the end. Rooms can be archived and then regrown or restored. Her pilot is far more unique. She would lose a million squash courts before she ever gave up her silly little Doctor.

Comments

[roseglade.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is so good! I love that you took the Tardis' view on this. We don't get to see/hear much of her nowadays as a real person with a conscience/soul. Great work again, I really enjoyed reading it. :D

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Thanks! If the TARDIS could talk all the time, I'm sure she'd have a lot to say. I've written a few things for her, but I never taken it as far as I would like. We know the TARDIS experiences time differently, so it would be neat to experiment with different tenses while writing for her.

[matimae03.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! This was so entertaining to read, I never really thought of the TARDIS and rooms like this before, you did a overall wonderful job on this!

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It was amusing to imagine that the TARDIS creates all of these rooms in her spare time because she has nothing else to do. Anyone would be miffed if you destroyed their hard work. :-)

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was beautiful and sweet! What a nice glimpse of the TARDIS's thoughts.

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I had fun with the notion that the TARDIS has been constantly growing rooms since she was first introduced. It's a way to explain why the sets back then only had one or two spaces off of the console room.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, that's great! (And Castrovalva must have been one of her least favourite adventures, then!)

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

And Castrovalva must have been one of her least favourite adventures, then!

I can't imagine that it's easy to build something like the Zero Room. I'm sure the TARDIS was very annoyed with the Doctor for a few days afterwards. ;-)

[thisbluespirit]

Or, possibly, being non-linear, inexplicably, a few months before, I suppose! ;-)

[paynesgrey.livejournal.com]

This was adorable. I love the voice of the TARDIS throughout this piece. Well done!

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Writing from the TARDIS' POV is always fun. She probably doesn't approve of a lot of the things the Doctor does. :-)

[dancingdragon3.livejournal.com]

Awesome, fun fic! Thank you for coming up with it.

She’s well aware that she doesn’t have a mouth and even if he did consult her, she wouldn’t be able to give a reply, but it’s the simple gesture of asking that matters.

LOL, I love your characterization.

But then the idea that she gets attached and mourns for lost companions, and lost Doctors, was a surprising and touching detail. Hope you write more from her pov :-)

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reading. :-)

But then the idea that she gets attached and mourns for lost companions, and lost Doctors, was a surprising and touching detail.

She may call them strays, but I like to believe that the TARDIS cares deeply for everyone who comes on board. That junk room Clara finds in "Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS" is kind of proof that the TARDIS never throws anything away.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

This? PERFECT. Love it!! LOL!!

*HUGS*

[locker-monster.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. :-)