narrated to voice recognition software, and reformatted by Mark Simpson
Part of the Fifth Doctor Fiction collection
As the familiar sound of the TARDIS materialised the ground was or looked like it was moving just before the TARDIS landed fully.
The Doctor, an attractive young blond haired man, in a tannish style cricket uniform was hunched over the console working on a problem.
"Doctor, have we arrived yet?"
The Doctor pointed to the time rotor at the centrally located area of the console. "Well isn't it obvious? Do you see the time rotor moving at all?"
"Well no but -"
"Well I think that we have arrived then Tara."
Tara was a young woman of around 19 to 20 years old. She had striking red hair and deep blue eyes and was tall and rather slender for her size. "Well are we going to go out and look at this sandy beach you told me about?"
"In a moment Tara, I have to figure out these readings. They shifted as we were landing here on your planet Earth."
Tara thought to herself for a moment. How nice it will be to get back home after all these years travelling with the Doctor in this clunky old box. She was interrupted in the middle of her wonderings of the mind with the Doctor bumping her out of his way.
"Well Doctor, the least you could do is say excuse me!"
"Um, excuse me Tara, but I am quite busy here, you see the viewer is not working properly and I have no idea if we are where we are supposed to be."
"Are you trying to tell me that you still can't steer this thing the way you want it to?"
"I didn't say that. I just said that I want to make sure we are where we are supposed to be that is all."
Tara noticed a slight rumbling in the floor that was not there before. "Doctor, what is that..."
"What is what Tara?"
"Don't you feel it?" In the floor?"
Before the Doctor could react the entire room lurched and the TARDIS was moving ... being either dragged or pushed along the ground.
"Doctor! What is happening?"
"I am not sure." The Doctor was still standing and Tara still wanted to know how he did that, always able to keep standing when the ship moved one way then the other.
"Well that should not be... the TARDIS is ..." The Doctor ran to the other side of the console. "Not moving... it weighs too much."
"Then what is it Doctor? An earthquake?"
"No, but there is definitely something going on."
The Doctor tried the viewer once again and still it would not operate. Out of desperation the Doctor tried to open the doors not knowing what to expect.
"Doctor what are you doing?"
"I am setting up the force fields around the doors to keep working as I open the doors to see what is going on outside - if that is okay with you!"
The Doctor flipped the switch to open the doors, and open they did, to find a large wall of rock just outside the TARDIS doors.
"What is it Doctor?"
"It is a rock face... but I was sure we landed just outside Aberdeen. I don't remember any mountains just outside Aberdeen."
"Well can we not just leave?"
"When we know why this is happening I suppose so, but not knowing what is up it is a little tricky Tara."
As the Doctor and Tara were watching, the rock face the rock wall moved and then slowly lowered and shrank away from the doors of the TARDIS, revealing a barren land of nothing but rock where the whatever force had pushed the TARDIS from its original position.
The Doctor looked on amazed, while Tara did not believe that it was a large boulder or rock that was moving the TARDIS.
"Doctor what was that?"
"Well I now know that we are on Earth, but this doesn't look like Scotland at all. Unless, there was a time distortion which would account for the instruments going haywire."
"Well then Doctor, could you tell me why it looked like a really large boulder was moving the TARDIS?"
"I do not know Tara, I don't have all the answers you know."
"Okay I must be dying! Now I have heard it all. The Doctor finally admitting to something he doesn't know about!"
"So, you want to take a small jaunt around and see what is going on around here?"
"Out there? Are you kidding? No way! I am staying in here where it is safe."
Just then another large boulder slid past the main doors to the TARDIS and did not leave a mark in the ground.
"Are you sure you want to go outside Doctor?"
The Doctor looked grim at this information and still got ready for his excursion. "I thought you said you were not going Tara?"
"Well Doctor, someone has to keep you out of trouble now don't they?"
The Doctor lowered the field around the doors and they set foot onto solid rock. "Well this seems sturdy enough."
Just as they had moved five feet from the TARDIS the rock directly beneath the TARDIS rose up in a straight column of stone, a good fifty feet straight up in the air. Without making a sound, when they turned around to see the TARDIS they then saw to their horror that the TARDIS was now out of normal reach, on a rather tall pedestal of smooth stone.
"Great. Now what are we supposed to do, Doctor?" Tara asked with exasperation in her words.
"Well this is most inconvenient."
As the two turned around to survey their surrounds, the TARDIS was returned to its original position level with the people. As they turned back around they found the TARDIS was once more able to be reached.
"Doctor, I think we better get back in there before something else happens!"
"I think you are right Tara." With that the Doctor fished out his key, and raised it to put in the door and the entire TARDIS moved backwards away from them as if sliding along the ground, without making a slightest bit of noise.
"Tara, did you just see that?"
"I don't think so but if you say it did I believe you."
The Doctor and Tara took a step closer to the TARDIS and as they walked towards it, something moved it and kept it the same distance from them at all times. Just out of reach but within touching distance with their outstretched fingers.
"Doctor, I get the feeling that someone is playing with us."
"You too huh? Well, let's try this then. Here is my spare key, you hold on to it. I am going to circle around the back of it and see what happens then. Okay?"
"Sounds like an idea, but will it work?"
"Don't know until we try."
The Doctor left Tara and started walking away from the TARDIS, flanking it and then around the backside of it. And then the Doctor charged it! The force that was moving the TARDIS reacted quickly by sliding it sideways with Tara being ready for this and changed positions quickly to block it. But this proved to be her folly. The force moving the TARDIS used it to chase Tara like a cat chases a mouse. Tara did not care that she had the key and wanted inside it now, she just wanted to get away from it so that she did not get run over.
"DOCTOR!" Tara screamed! "DON'T JUST STAND THERE LIKE A STATUE! HELP ME!"
The Doctor just stood for a moment watching the comical event and then started laughing. "Well I know this is not the time, but I think that the TARDIS knows just where it is wanting to steer itself this time."
"GET OVER HERE AND RESCUE ME YOU IDIOT!"
The Doctor was still laughing, not able to control himself. Tara turned his way and started running toward him. As she did so, she ran right toward the Doctor and past him, thus the force started chasing the Doctor instead!
"You did that on purpose Tara!"
"Now you know what it feels like to be run down by your own ship don't you?"
Tara was catching her breath and did not notice that the rock ground had slowly crept up and around Tara's feet and ankles up to her knees where it literally hugged her legs firmly and very tight! Then the force moving the TARDIS stopped and the Doctor had a chance to catch up with his breathing.
However, as the Doctor looked on, his view was blocked by bars of stone surrounding him. He knocked the bars away with as much explosive force as he could muster. Meanwhile, Tara was able to get out one last scream, And as she did this the rock went up over her lower lip and filled her mouth and sealed it tightly with her upper teeth still showing. Then it kept still slowly filling up around her, until all you could see was her upper head and those deep blue eyes in frantic horror as you could tell she was not getting any air. As the rock poured out from her nose, you could tell that the rock had taken every part of Tara's body. It was going through her every internal structure, and finally she was encased in the rock and all you could see then was a few wisps of hair around those still searching eyes.
As the Doctor finally got free and tried to get the rock freed from her body. But as he worked, the small window to Tara closed and went dark. The Doctor yelled and went crazy trying to free his friend from the rock that just up and devoured his most recent companion and there was nothing he could do.
He went back to the TARDIS and sat on the floor just inside the doors, and watched the now lifeless form that was once a moving living female, just starting her life, and it was all his fault! He should never had stopped in London for some fish and chips and left that door open for that brief moment where that young waitress came after him with his change from being over charged.
And now look what he had done! Caused the death of another companion. The Doctor started to cry. And watched as the stone ground started to slowly take down into itself the form which was once been Tara to where it looked like the whole thing was just melting back into itself.
The Doctor looked at the sky and screamed. "WHY ME?" The Doctor walked back into the TARDIS and got a wreath and a laser cutter and came back out with them to the place where there was just a small lump where Tara once took her final breath of air, her last glimpse of life, her last sound. The Doctor placed a wreath of blue roses around the lump of where her head was and in the rock directly beneath the roses he wrote 'Rest In Peace: A Beloved Friend. And someone that was taken much too early in life'.
Born?
Died?
When time has no relevance and no meaning, what date could he put?
The Doctor sat and cried more.
***
The Doctor woke to find himself laying on a bed with a canopy of blue roses all around him He sat upright very quickly and noticed that he was back in the TARDIS, in Tara's room, not knowing how he got there, or why he was even in her room. Last thing he remembered was crying and then he realised that he must have fallen into slumber without knowing from such grief. He leapt from the bed, pulling on his jacket and slipping on his shoes, and then realised that someone had to have placed him here, because even in his worst moments he never took off his clothing either.
The Doctor got around, took a sip from the water sitting beside the bed, and set off for the console room. When he arrived, he noticed that the room had changed slightly somewhat, the TARDIS was in flight, and a rather slow flight at that.
"Well old girl, who set you a-going? And to where?" And then the Doctor noticed the floor! It used to be white, but was now that same dingy marble colour that had taken his companion Tara and killed her.
"Oh, Tara if only you were still here." As the Doctor stated this, the floor started to move into a large mass and the grey turned back to white and the shape took on the form of a humanoid, then took on features of what looked like Tara. The Doctor stood glaring at this monstrosity that reminded him of his young woman he just lost not so long ago.
"Who are you? And why do you take on that of which you destroyed?" Then the eyes opened to reveal the same deep blue eyes. However now they were made of stone or rock, but the rock did not speak for a moment; instead moving around with the noiseless movement that Tara did before, and then it spoke in Tara's voice.
"Well, Doctor, that is a fine howdy do. I brought you inside and got us moving again and this is how you treat me?"
The Doctor was grasping for straws. "What? How are you here, I saw you get killed by that thing that devoured you!"
"Well yes and no. As I remember, I was very terrified, and as I started to slip into unconsciousness from lack of air, I found I was starting to breathe differently. I was even aware of when you wrote my epitaph or headstone for my grave. And I must say that the roses were a rather nice touch too. But a little premature don't you think?"
"Yes but how?"
"Well Doctor, let me just say, that whatever it was that was doing all that stuff while we were there, it bonded with me, and I do mean it literally went in every opening and or crevasse and searched through my body and became part of me. And now we live together in this newly formed body. It was easier to fuse with my body than yours ... it told me somehow, I can't really explain it, but it still talks to me, through my mind.
"But I ... well, I have been learning what I can do with this new life. I can take on the thickness of just a few microns, to where I can restructure myself, to where I can become a diamond. Literally! Although, I don't really need to eat now, I still breathe, I can still drink, and I do ... well sort of eat, mostly minerals or other rocks, which become parts of me. But I have a heart still and it beats quite strong.
"Clothing is optional now, since I can make my outer form look or resemble almost any kind of clothing. But just think what my friends would say back home. I have arms of steel if I so wish it, or can turn into almost any kind of mineral, iron, metal what have you, but still I have to watch my strength because sometimes I forget and accidentally break a glass or something. But that was easily cleaned up; I simply absorbed it into my self, and then restructured it, and made it new again like nothing ever happened to it. I know this is a major change, it will take some getting use to for me as well, but just remember I am the new and improved Tara Jackson! Although I am seriously thinking of changing my name to Tara Granite. Or maybe Tara Marble? How's about Miss Diamond?!"
The Doctor interrupted. "How about just Tara? Okay? Let me know later about changes. Now how long have we been back on the TARDIS?"
"Well you have been asleep for almost a week, and we have been just travelling aimlessly around the cosmos for about the same amount of time."
"What? We can't just do that! Let's go and see about getting some more information on you from the medical foundation. I know a good man there, a professor Marius, although he might be a doctor by now."
Tara looked at him. "Not another Doctor?"
The Doctor came up to her side and gave her a punch in her shoulder and winced at the pain he just dished out on himself. She was holding his hand.
"Tara, remind me not to do that again."
"Do what? Uh, never mind."
The Doctor reset the co-ordinates for the medical foundation and set the TARDIS in flight. Looking over at Tara, he wondered if it was still her. Without warning Tara walked around the console, took the Doctor's face in her rather cold stone hands and then grabbed him around the chest, squeezing him to where he was not able to breathe, and kissed him square on the lips. She then let him go, to the Doctor's relief who was now able to take in a deep breath.
"Oops, I forgot and did it again. I have to remember the strength thing."
"Well Tara we will have to work on that now, won't we?" The Doctor flipped the switch to the scanner and the viewer opened up, operating without a problem. "I don't remember fixing that."
"Well Doctor I did it, while you were still sleeping. I hope that was okay with you?"
"We will have to have a little talk, young lady. But there it is the foundation."
Tara looked outside the viewer and saw a large asteroid type structure with a large Red Cross sign on the front of it.
"Well we will soon see what is going on with you and what problems this might cause you."
The TARDIS started the materialisation process and materialised inside a rather large open foyer with some staff personal walking around it, and over the intercom came a female's voice. "Doctor Marius, please report to the main lobby. Doctor Marius, please report to main lobby."
