Doctor Who: Triptych 7/10
The Doctor waved away the smoke and cleared his lungs with a cough as he took inventory of his physical condition.
The explosion had thrown him against a roundel'ed wall, where he was currently sitting. He was uninjured, but quite pinned down by a section of control column.
"Jamie!" he called. "Jamie, can you hear me?"
An explosion of Gaelic made him smile. "I take it from that blast of colourful language that you're all in one piece?"
"Aye, I'm unhurt," Jamie growled. "But I'm royally stuck!"
The Doctor licked his lips. "Okay, can you see the control panel from your angle?"
"Aye! A whole chunk of her is missing, and she's on fire!"
The Doctor frowned. On fire? The TARDIS wasn't on fire!
His eyes widened as he realised the explosion had blown the two TARDISes apart - and he was in his third self's roundel-walled TARDIS, while Jamie was in his. And his was burning. "Jamie, I'm going to send my sonic rolling your way!" He adjusted a setting on it. "Point it at the fire and press the yellow square. That will trigger the fire-suppression system."
"Why can't you?"
Because I'm in the wrong TARDIS. "Because I can't see it where I'm at! Here it comes!" He took a deep breath and set the sonic screwdriver on the floor.
No matter where they were, the Doctor remembered that Jamie could pull a sandwich seemingly out of thin air. His second self had often wondered if Jamie hadn't been a very early example of what would come to be known as meta-humans - with his superhuman ability being the ability to bring whatever he needed at the moment to him. With his bottomless stomach, it was usually food. Now, the Doctor would test that theory. "Reach for it, Jamie!" he said as he set it to rolling.
He saw a familiar hand emerge from a roundel and grab the sonic, then draw it right through the wall. He began to smile as he leaned his head against the wall, eyes closed. "Good job, Jamie."
Trapped in different TARDISes, but able to communicate, the Doctor chuckled softly. Either the comm system was stuck on, or Jamie's ability was letting them communicate through their now relative dimensions.
If he had money to bet, he'd put it on the comm system being stuck on.
"Got it!" Jamie called. "Point what end?"
"The blue end - and press the yellow square!"
A long few seconds passed, then another explosion of Gaelic made the Doctor laugh. Neither TARDIS, it seemed, wished to translate Jamie's cursing. "Did she give you a dunking, then?"
"Aye," Jamie snarled. "And I'm still stuck fast! What now?"
"If you roll my sonic back to me, I'll see about calling for help." A moment later, the sonic rolled through the wall and straight into his hand. "Thank you!"
"Welcome!" Jamie called back.
The Doctor made a couple of adjustments and pointed the sonic at the TARDIS ceiling. "Donna - can you hear me?" He fell silent, waiting for a reply.
"Oi, Spaceman,"came the sweetest sound in the universe at that moment. "Care to explain why there are suddenly three TARDISes parked here instead of two?"
The Doctor chuckled, leaning hard against the wall. "We had a bit of an issue, Donna. What was wrong with my third self's TARDIS destabilised both of ours, since they were fused together."
Donna breathed a curse. "Are you and Jamie all right?"
"We are," her 'brother' was quick to assure her. "However, both of us are stuck under debris from the explosion and I'm afraid Jamie may be soaked to the gills from the fire-retardant system."
"Hello, Ginger Me," the bright voice of his second self chirped. "We are on our way. Which TARDIS are you in?"
The Doctor took a breath, licking his lips. "I'm in the one that belongs in this time. Jamie is not."
He could almost hear his second self slamming on brakes and could quite easily see him screeching to a halt. "You mean to tell me that you are in separate TARDISes?"
"Yup." He couldn't resist popping the 'P'. "Blew apart by the blast and both stuck fast. So a little speed wouldn't be amiss, old chap!" He deliberately mimicked his third self's speech pattern.
Moments later, he heard the comforting hum of the doors opening and the Brigadier calling, "Doctor? ....bloody hell, looks like a bomb went off in here..."
"Something went off in here, that's for sure!" the Doctor called.
He heard footsteps, then the Brigadier's voice from just behind him. "I see where you're jammed in. Benton, if you'd be so kind..."
Benton - still dressed almost like his third self - came around and knelt in front of the Doctor. But the smile he gave him was Sergant Benton, through and through. "Donna, Doctor Harry and the small fellow are taking care of Jamie. She said she knows that machine better than we do and she'll find out what's wrong with her."
The Doctor chuckled. "That's Donna, all right!"
With the combined strength of his friends pulling the debris from the wall just a little bit, the Doctor gained enough leverage to shove his lanky legs out from underneath. He accepted the Brigadier's hand to get to his feet and winced as the debris fell back with a 'thunk' as they released it. "Oi, numb legs," he growled as he did a little dance to get the feeling back.
His friends chuckled a bit at his antics, then Benton sobered as the spark of alien intelligence slowly filled his eyes. "So!" he said, clapping his hands together. "What do you say we put our collective brains together and figure out what happened to the Old Girl so we can sort our collective selves out?"
Before the Doctor could reply, the comm chirped and Donna's voice interrupted, "We've got him and we're headed your way. Doctor, it's time we start getting answers and the best shot we have lies inside that TARDIS."
Benton grinned smugly as the Doctor shook his head, replying, "We know. We'll get started. See you in a few minutes."
On to chapter eight