Chapter Text
The Time Vortex, the dimension where space and time met, the ever-changing flow of time drifted through the clouds, changing them and at the same time keeping them the same.
The tunnel could be described as calm and chaotic, beautiful and terrifying, depending on the person you asked.
The space-time tunnel vibrated with artron energy as an object launched through at speeds unknown. The calm of the vortex turned violent, creating new pathways and sending destructive waves into space and time.
The blue object disappeared from the tunnel, leaving chaos in its wake. The Time Vortex changed, the grey and blue cloud mass turned red and blue in warning of incoming time disturbances.
Time was changing, and the Time Vortex was at the centre of it. The tunnel adjusted itself, creating new paths and spaces to accommodate the alterations to time. The air in one of said tunnels crackled, and with a silent whoosh, a blue object flew through.
The TARDIS spun wildly through the Time Vortex, smoke billowing through her broken windows. The ship dipped in and out of the cloudy space-time tunnel. Sparks flew off the time ship, causing artron bolts to form inside the vortex.
The artron bolts deflected off of the cloudy mass, each deflection charging them up. The bolts grew larger and brighter, the crackling beginning to sound like a thousand birds chirping.
The TARDIS veered from left to right as she dodged the bolts. Taking a small bump, the ship slipped into another tunnel that transitioned into a wild expanse of purple.
The TARDIS, using all of her power to reach the end, was unable to dodge an artron bolt, making her slip through one of the holes created by them.
The hit slipped through her disguise, worming its way into her systems. The TARDIS tried blocking it, but due to major power fluctuations, she had to focus on more important matters.
The artron energy slipped from her chameleon circuit to her console. The console lit up in blue and, with a silent crack, the TARDIS sustained major damage on top of the damage already there from the Doctor’s regeneration.
Levers and buttons melted away, leaving them inoperable. The console room was filled with smoke and fire that slowly flickered out. The time rotor lay in pieces on the floor. Books lay strewn about, the bookshelves had fallen over, causing the railings to bend under their weight. The once pristine walls had massive holes that extended further than the eye could see.
The TARDIS gathered up her remaining energy and steered herself in the right direction, her pilot nowhere in sight due to having fallen into her next adventure. She would be fine and would return; the TARDIS had foreseen it.
The TARDIS steered herself through the purple waves to save one of the Doctor’s most loyal friends, the one who had been there for the Doctor through thick and thin, one of the friends she had taken quite a liking to: Nardole.
The Vortex shook, making her struggle to fly up towards the right pathway. She brushed past a particularly unstable rift in the vortex, her side scraping against it, leaving burn marks behind.
The rift pulsated close, making the TARDIS start to spin down. Not enough energy left to drag herself up, her engines briefly failed as she pushed them to the limits.
She was left plummeting down into the void. The cloister bell began to ring, warning of the danger ahead. The console room flashed red, but there was nothing left to be done, until the Time Vortex flashed red, and a time explosion erupted from the bottom.
The TARDIS drifted just near enough and launched up towards the tunnel she had been reaching for.
Her engines ignited again as she absorbed the energy that was unleashed from the time explosion. The light on top flashed blue as the energy drifted in. Despite it, she was still in need of repairs, the energy not enough to fix her.
Inside the console room, the dematerialisation lever flipped over. Sparks started lighting up the console, and the TARDIS started disappearing.
The air in the vortex crackled, and once again, with a silent whoosh, the blue box flew through.
With a heavy thud, the TARDIS materialised at her destination. Her systems shut down to preserve as much energy as possible, as she awaited Nardole’s arrival.
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
“I can’t grow a beard,” Nardole told one of the children, rubbing at his cheeks. “Never could, even before I became a cyborg.”
The group strolled through the wheat field of the floor they had settled on. They ran and ran from the Cyberman. Each time, it took them less time to get to them, but Nardole didn’t want to dwell on it; he just wanted to enjoy life until it ended.
“What was it like to become a cyborg, Mister Nardole?” one of the girls asked as she handed him a flower. He patted her on the head and thanked her.
“Honestly, it felt quite ticklish,” he said with a smile. “Thought it would hurt more. Had to share a body with someone else for a while; it was awkward at times,” he shuddered, remembering being enclosed in such a tiny space.
“How tiny?” one of the boys asked. Nardole looked at his fingers and adjusted them. “This tiny.” There was barely a gap left between his index finger and thumb.
“You're lying!” the boy said, giggling.
“No, I’m not!” Nardole said, exaggerating his offence. “It really was. Couldn’t even keep a goldfish in there.”
They walked for a little while longer. The gentle breeze made the wheat sway from side to side as they approached a spot with fallen logs laid in a circle. The kids ran off ahead, leaving Nardole to catch up.
“Not so fast!” he yelled after them as he started jogging.
He huffed as he finally got there. Nardole squinted his eyes as he looked up. He pressed his lips together as he saw no one.
“Tag, you’re it,” one of the kids tagged him in the back. Nardole startled a bit.
“That’s not fair! I just got here!” he shouted, hands still on his knees.
He took a deep gulp of fresh air, started jogging in place, and then started running.
“I’m going to get you!” he shouted, as he spotted one of the boys hiding behind a log.
As he was in reach, he put on a deep voice and raised his hands, making himself look like a monster. The children ran, jumping over obstacles, giggling through all of it.
“Tag, you’re it!” Nardole yelled as he tagged one of them with his finger. He quickly turned around and scampered off, laughing to himself.
The children grouped up. They looked at each other, nodded, and sprinted to get Nardole.
Nardole looked back, spotted the group, and screamed in frustration.
“How’s that fair!” He focused back ahead and almost stumbled into a tree. “That was close,” he said, wiping a hand across his forehead in relief.
He ran around the tree, then stumbled over a root, falling straight onto the ground.
“Are you alright?” the children asked as Nardole flipped over onto his back.
“I think I broke one of my nipples,” Nardole rubbed at the spot. The children stood over him, watching. One leaned down and tagged him.
“You’re it.”
They then all ran off again. Nardole grumbled to himself, annoyed at all the running. ‘I hate tag.’
Getting back on his feet, he brushed his pants off and started running again.
A little while later, they were all lying around a campfire that Nardole had started. They looked up at the ceiling, it having gone dark on the floor. Nardole looked at the stars in the fake sky. He had seen stars up close, and now here he was, looking at them from afar.
“Can you tell us another story of the Doctor?”
Nardole looked to his left at the boy who asked. His face scrunched up in thought. He nodded and pushed himself up with his arms.
“Sure, I can,” he said. His tone was cheerful, yet in his mind, he sounded sorrowful, unsure of the Doctor’s fate. ‘I hope you are safe, Doctor.’
Nardole coughed to clear his throat.
“So there was this time, the Doctor took me to Rome.”
Nardole’s face scrunched up in displeasure. He hated Rome, the worst place he had been.
“I had told the Doctor he couldn’t go,” Nardole’s forehead creased up, “and he still went. I narrowly made it inside the doors before he took off.”
“What’s Rome like?” Eliah asked, one of the smaller boys in the group.
Nardole tapped his chin, trying to think of a way to describe it.
“Rome is, well, hot. Very hot.” He puffed and waved a hand at his face.
The children snickered at him.
“I was sweating buckets, and then the Doctor goes all like ‘Nardole, come on! Run faster!’ ” Nardole did an impression of the Doctor, having his fingers be his eyebrows.
“Why did you have to run?”
Nardole looked at the girl and huffed.
“The Doctor smashed a vendor’s vase by accident, and a bunch of Romans started chasing us. We almost got executed that day.”
He held two fingers across his neck and slid them across it. His head fell to the side, his tongue stuck out, pretending to be dead.
“I took the Doctor’s keys away for a week. After that, it was the most peaceful week ever,” he said, putting his hands behind his back with a triumphal smile on his face.
His smile slid off, turning into a sigh of annoyance.
“And then he ran off to Mars.”
The children kept asking more and more questions. The night grew late, and a few started dozing off.
“Alright, let’s get a move on,” he said, clapping his hands, gaining all their attention.
“Can’t sleep here. I want to sleep on a nice, comfortable surface, not on bug-infested ground,” he said, mimicking creepy crawlies.
The children scrambled up and started leading the way to their settlement.
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
“I wish I had a sonic screwdriver,” Nardole sighed, wiping the sweat away from his forehead as he dismantled one of the fallen Cybermen. The core started flashing; the blue spark nearly shocked one of the men helping him. Nardole gave a sheepish smile as he looked up.
“Sorry.”
He got a frown from the man, who then motioned for him to continue, shaking his head at Nardole’s actions.
Nardole opened up the chest of the Cyber warrior and cut one of the silicone tubes. A popping noise was heard, gaining Nardole’s attention.
“AAAAAA!” Nardole screamed in terror as the face lifted to reveal a skull.
Nardole let the cutter fall and stumbled back into a seat.
“Are you alright?” the dismantling team asked.
Nardole nodded, his hands gripping onto the armrests. With shaky legs, he stood up and adjusted his glasses.
“It looked like my ex. Gave me a bit of a scare,” he said with a nervous chuckle. He then took the cutters out of the wired body.
Meanwhile, his thoughts were filled with memories of him and Bill.
“How long have you been with the Doctor?” Bill asked as they lounged inside the Doctor’s office, waiting for him to come back from the vault.
Nardole dropped the homework he was grading for the Doctor. That man never graded his students’ papers, leaving Nardole to do his dirty work.
He looked to his left at Bill, who lounged on the couch. “I lost count… should be around three hundred years now. I look good for three hundred, don’t I? My hair has never looked better.” He pulled his hand through it.
Bill scoffed, flipping her legs off the couch. “You don’t have hair.”
Nardole made an offended noise. “I do!” he said in a squeaky voice. “It’s just invisible to your stupid human eyes.”
Bill smiled at him, shaking her head. Nardole jumped up from behind the desk and stormed up to her. “I’m going to tell on you to the Doctor,” he said, his lip pouting, his finger pointed towards her.
He turned to leave until a mechanical voice rang from behind him.
“Doctor.”
Nardole froze mid-step.
“When did it become dark?” he asked, looking around the office. The windows displayed an endless expanse of darkness.
Nardole turned his head slightly. “Bill?” The couch that had been occupied by the girl was now empty.
“Alright, mess with Nardole. Ha, ha, very funny.” His tone became more unsure the more steps he took. The office began to crumble more and more, and an abandoned version was left behind.
“Nardole,” a whisper came from behind him.
“Alright, Doctor, stop messing a-”
“Nardole…”
Bill stood at the other end of the room, half of her stomach gone.
Her head was limp, and her smile was crazed.
“It’s all your fault, Nardie,” she said mockingly.
Nardole backed up. As she approached, he gulped, gathering his confidence. “No, I didn’t kn-”
“Oh, you did.” Her eyes faded out, leaving behind black voids.
“Please, Bill, I really didn’t know!”
“You knew the risks,” she bit out. “You knew agreeing to this adventure would lead to trouble.”
Nardole wanted to puke as the gaping hole in Bill’s stomach began regrowing, wires taking the spot her organs should have been.
She paused as her whole visage shimmered into a Mondasian Cyberman.
Nardole bumped into the desk as Cyber Bill approached.
“YOU DID THIS TO ME!” she screamed at him. Her hand reached toward his neck, and Nardole burst into tears as her hand grabbed his neck and she electrocuted him.
“Nardole!” Kyran shook him. Nardole snapped back to focus.
“Kyran?”
Kyran patted him on the shoulder.
“What’s going on?” Nardole asked, looking around the room. His eyes felt damp; he wiped at them, he had cried.
“You came back from the chair and started working on that thing again,” Kyran said, pointing towards the Cyberman. “And then you just stood there, muttering.” He then made a motion with his hand. “That thing electrocuted you, and you fell unconscious.”
Kyran helped him up, he hadn’t even noticed he was lying on the ground.
“You alright?” Kyran asked.
Nardole walked up to the metal man again. “Yeah, just dandy. Just made a wrong move.”
Kyran looked unsure but nodded. Nardole smiled.
“Let’s get these explosives out,” he said, starting to dismantle the Cyberman again.
A tear slipped out of his eyes one final time.
‘I’m sorry, Bill.’
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
“Oh, ya don’t have to help,” Olandra, the oldest woman of the group, told him, pushing him away from the cooking supplies.
“But I wanna help! I love cooking. It’s one of the things I really loved back on Earth,” Nardole said, trying to grab one of the carrots, but he got slapped instead.
“Ow.” He pouted. “Olandra, that hurt.” He rubbed at his cheek. “Are you secretly a superhuman or something? That is quite the strength for an-”
She glared at him.
“Don’t you dare say that I’m old. I'm in the prime of my life.” She slammed her cleaver down on a potato and shot him a menacing glare.
Nardole’s eyes widened in shock, and he laughed nervously.
“Maybe I’ll go help put up the tents.”
She nodded and smiled again. “Good idea, lad.”
Nardole speed-walked out of there.
“Even the Doctor isn’t that menacing,” he gulped.
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
“It’s you,” The Doctor sighed. “Didn’t I send you to Glasgow to get me coffee?” he asked, adjusting one of the buttons on the console.
“I saw through your trick. You’re about to head off!” Nardole stormed up to him and glared.
“Get back out there and go lecture.” Nardole went to grab him, and then the room shifted.
Nardole stood in the basement, the Doctor sitting in front of the vault, sipping coffee.
“But…” Nardole looked all around. “We were just…” He took off his glasses and wiped them, willing the surrounding area to change back.
“What are you on about, Nardole?” The Doctor queried, raising an eyebrow as he got up from the floor. “Did you drink wine again?”
The Doctor didn’t look right, his clothes were too filthy.
He stood face to face with him, his hands glowing golden. The surroundings around them shifted again, now becoming a white office.
Nardole looked down at his clothes. They had changed into the ones he wore during the Monk crisis.
“What is going on!?” he yelled at the Doctor, who was still standing in front of him.
“Nothing,” he told him and patted his shoulder, walking out of the room.
Nardole stared as he took off. “Wait!” he yelled, running after him through the doors.
The Doctor began fading into the distance. It was like Nardole couldn’t catch up. His surroundings shifted again, to the yard in front of St. Luke’s University. The Doctor was chasing after something, but Nardole couldn’t make out what.
“Doctor, wait!” he yelled, desperate to catch up. He almost stumbled but regained his footing.
The scene changed again. They were on Mars. The Doctor was still running.
He kept staying just out of reach. The surroundings kept flipping until, “Ow!” Nardole stumbled to the ground, face first.
Looking back up, he now found himself in the console room again.
“What is happening!?” he groaned as he flipped over and got to his knees.
“I didn’t take any drugs, did I?” Nardole thought back, trying to decipher what was happening.
“Did you?” The Doctor appeared in front of him, crouching.
“Doctor?” Nardole asked.
“No,” the Doctor said, shaking his head.
“What do you mean, no? You’re clearly him!” Nardole said accusingly.
“I mean no, I am not the Doctor. I am a memory version of him.” The Doctor disappeared, reappearing on the seat.
“Oh, come on, Nardole. Be smart for once, think.”
Nardole frowned, wanting to retort that he was smart. The Doctor scoffed.
“Oi!” Nardole snapped, getting back up and approaching him. The Doctor vanished again and reappeared on the stairs.
“Think, Nardole,” he said, tapping his temple.
Nardole rolled his eyes and did so, not because he told him to.
The shifting surroundings. The memories.
“I’m dreaming,” he said out loud.
“Took you long enough,” the Doctor said as he flipped the blackboard, revealing the word dream.
“You’re a dream. Why are you being rude to me? You’re in my mind.”
The Doctor smiled. “Because you miss him.”
He came toward him and, in a move the real Doctor would never do, embraced him.
“You were a good friend,” the Doctor whispered.
Nardole hugged back, clinging on tight. Tears slipped out.
“Are you alive?” he asked, pulling back to look him in the eyes.
“I’m not him, Nardole.”
Nardole nodded and fell silent, simply enjoying the hug. He knew it wasn’t really the Doctor, but it brought him comfort, even if only for a moment.
The Doctor let go, and Nardole’s arms felt empty and cold. The man gave him one final look and walked down the stairs.
“Goodbye, Nardole.”
As the hallway doors closed, Nardole shot awake, covered in sweat. He looked around, hoping he hadn’t dreamed it, that he was still inside the TARDIS.
But alas, he was back in his tent.
He lay back down and wiped away his tears once more.
“Goodbye, Doctor,” he muttered.
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
“Nardole, come quick! I think they found us!”
Nardole felt his stomach drop. He sprinted to camp and snatched some binoculars out of a man’s hand, looking into the distance.
“They’re coming!” he yelled across camp. “Gather all the necessary supplies and head for the exit!”
He beelined it for his tent.
He quickly pulled open his laptop and started typing away, arming the defences he had laid out. He could now hear their stomping in the distance, and he knew he was running out of time.
“Come on, work, you stupid thing!” he smacked the laptop as it froze. He bit on his lip as he watched the screen buffer. He wished the Doctor were here, he couldn’t do this. Nardole was starting to panic.
“Nardole!” Kyran yelled, running into his tent.
“Not now, Kyran!” he told the man.
“It’s urgent.”
He reluctantly looked away from the screen, his gloved hand motioning the man to continue.
“The exit has been blocked.”
Nardole’s face scrunched up. “What do you mean blocked? Unblock it!”
Kyran paced about the tent. “A full Cyber battalion is blocking it.”
Nardole jumped up, the laptop tumbling from his lap. “A battalion!?” he yelled, his hands flying to his head. “Not good, not good,” he muttered, panicking. “We’re doomed,” he said out loud, accepting his fate. He sat back down. “I knew this day would come, knew it the moment the Doctor didn’t make it.”
Kyran’s posture had deflated by Nardole’s words, and he collapsed onto a crate, burying his head in his hands.
Nardole picked the laptop back up, the screen having broken from the fall. “Aw, my Bitcoin was on there,” he whined.
Kyran looked up at him furiously. He approached and took a hold of Nardole’s scruff.
“We are all going to die, and you’re worrying about that!?”
Spit flew out of the man’s mouth onto his glasses. Nardole was about to retort when the man let him go, and he fell backwards.
“Whatever. I’m going to spend my last moments with my wife instead-” he motioned at Nardole, “With a pathetic piece of shit like you.”
Nardole was offended. He had done his best. There was nothing to be done.
“That was rude,” he said as the man exited. He had tried his best, hadn’t he? He had followed the Doctor’s orders and had protected the people. He had bought them a bit more time, at least, by arming the defences.
He wiped away the spit from his glasses and then stood up. He exited his tent. The camp was in chaos, people running all over the place, crying adults, crying children.
‘I still definitely don’t like humans,’ he thought as he observed his surroundings.
A crying lady came up to him.
“Please, Mister Nardole, is there really nothing else you can do?”
Nardole looked at her with a look of pity. “I’m afraid not.”
The woman burst into even bigger tears and clung onto him for dear life.
Nardole smiled nervously and awkwardly patted her back, then released her into the arms of a pissed-off man.
“She did it first,” he told him, holding up his hands in surrender.
At the edge of the camp, a couple of the men fired at the approaching Cybermen. Nardole covered his ears as one of his first mines blew up.
“Let’s go, men! We got this!” they shouted in unison, cheering as some Cybermen fell.
‘That won’t hold long,’ Nardole thought, then moved on again. He helped move boxes around, keeping himself busy for the remaining time until-
“It can’t be!” he exclaimed, dropping a cart of plates. Then he ran like he never ran before.
‘Come on! Come on!’ he desperately thought. He needed it to be true.
He whipped aside his tent covering, and there it was.
“It’s you!” A smile formed on his lips, and he ran towards the blue ship, hugging it and kissing the doors.
“Doctor, you came back!” he exclaimed.
He did a little dance. Then he tried to open the doors, but they wouldn’t budge.
“Oh, come on, Doctor. You can lock me out after this, just not now,” he banged on the doors. “Doctor, open them now, or I’ll be very cross!”
“You’re not in there, are you?” His face fell, his eyes glistening, and he patted the door after a moment.
He got no response, and it confirmed his fears.
“The universe truly is cruel, giving me false hope like that.” A humourless chuckle escaped his lips as he slid down onto the ground.
He took off his beanie, his head resting against the ship. The warmth she gave off was nice.
He was about to get up when he felt tingling on the back of his head. The TARDIS was doing that.
“What is it, girl? What do you want to tell Nardie?” He put his ear on the ship.
“Come on, you can do this,” he said, encouraging the sentient ship.
He had learned his lesson about calling her, it , he got booted into the pool, short-circuiting his body. He grimaced at the memory.
He felt a hum in his head, and the tingling intensified. He looked up, and the POLICE sign blinked.
“What is it?” he asked, jumping up. An image of a key behind the word appeared in his mind. Nardole’s eyes widened.
He let go, quickly reaching for a stool. He placed it in front of the ship and climbed on it. His hand stumbled on top of the sign and then-
“A-ha!” In his hand was the TARDIS key.
“You showed me that? The Doctor is gonna be so jealous.” He imagined the Doctor’s face when he told him, then the slap right after.
“Maybe not.”
Nardole swore the TARDIS’s hum sounded like giggling.
“At least someone appreciates my funniness.”
He put the key in the lock and twisted it. He crossed his fingers, and then the door creaked open, smoke billowing into his face.
“A warning would’ve been nice,” he said, wiping down his face.
A sorrowful hum came from the TARDIS.
“Don’t worry. Nardie will be fine.”
He stepped in.
“Wow, what a mess,” he observed his surroundings. The smoke was being sucked into a vent at the top.
“Thank you,” he told the ship.
She hummed a happy tune, and Nardole made it to the console.
“Can you take us out of here?”
He went up a level. He couldn’t bear the bookshelves looking like that, so he put them back up.
The monitor flashed with words: two trips, the TARDIS hummed.
“Don’t worry. That's all we need.”
Nardole’s, confidence restored, ran into the camp, yelling through a megaphone the TARDIS had given him.
“Alright, everyone, gather up!”
People kept at their business.
He cleared his throat.
“Attention!” And then he let an alarm blare. Once it was over, everyone was looking.
“I have a way out of here!” he told them. Their faces lit up with joy simultaneously.
“Gather your stuff and form a line at my tent,” he ordered them, and off they went, running to pack everything up.
Nardole went back to his tent.
“Get ready to have a crowd inside,” he told the ship, receiving a hum in return.
Half an hour later, all of the camp was gathered up, and people were heading into the TARDIS. Nardole had to slap away hands from messing with the console as the TARDIS guided him in flying the parts he hadn’t used before.
The TARDIS hummed. She encouraged him.
The screen lit up with a message: Better than my thief, making Nardole smirk.
Explosions rang outside the door, and the ship rocked a bit. Nardole was trying his hardest to concentrate, trying to remember everything the Doctor did.
He smashed his hands on the console as it didn’t work.
And then he remembered something.
“Can you activate emergency program one?”
The TARDIS hummed, and the screen flipped toward him again: Won’t work.
Nardole sighed and ran his hand through his ‘hair’ in frustration.
“I should’ve paid better attention in class. Oh, wait, I didn’t get one.”
He cursed the Doctor for not properly teaching him. And with the console half broken, from what the TARDIS told him was a regeneration, he could barely decipher which the familiar buttons were.
Nardole was starting to become overwhelmed. The crowd was too loud. He needed quietness.
“Nardole!”
He knew that voice, and he didn’t want to deal with him.
“Nardole, please, just a moment,” Kyran said as he shoved his way towards him.
“Sorry,” he added as he bumped into another person.
Nardole kept moving around the console, trying to make it work. The TARDIS hummed in distress as the scanner showed the Cybermen in camp.
Kyran finally made it up to Nardole, and Nardole snapped.
“What, can’t you see I’m busy trying to save our lives!?”
Kyran fidgeted, which looked out of place for the confident man.
“I get you’re angry at me, Nardole.” He swept a hand over his face. “I’m sorry for earlier. I was stressed and I-”
Nardole held up a hand. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t?” Kyran asked, confused. The fidgeting stopped.
Nardole rolled his eyes. ‘Humans.’
“Look, Kyran, I’ve dealt with ruder people than you. Just go be with your wife or whatever and let Nardie focus.”
He didn’t bother to look at the man again. His hands flew across the buttons on the console.
Kyran nodded, his mouth curving into a smile.
“Thank you.”
“Can’t you repair the console?” Nardole asked.
The monitor flashed with no, and Nardole sighed.
“Can you tell me which buttons and levers I need?”
The TARDIS said yes.
“But not here,” Nardole read aloud.
“What do you mean, not here? There is no other place.”
The monitor flashed a map, and Nardole inspected it.
“There’s another console room!”
Nardole practically ran through the crowd, toppling over some people. They all looked confused as he stormed through the hallway doors.
“Should we follow?” someone asked, and murmuring started.
Kyran moved up to the doors and blocked them.
“No. We’ll stay here and trust he’s got it covered.”
They nodded.
The TARDIS flashed her lights, guiding him, using as little energy as needed. She was still repairing herself.
“Is this it?” Nardole asked.
The TARDIS hummed and opened the door.
“I swear, if it’s the pool again-” Nardole shut up as he walked into the room. It was indeed another console room.
The room was not lit. The only light came from the time rotor. The room was completely green due to it. There were some pillars that looked like coral.
“Right, please no fish,” he said as he walked further in.
He looked up, and a bunch of cables hung loose.
“Let’s hope they don’t fall onto my head. That happened once, and it hurt.”
The console lit up, and the TARDIS hummed.
“Guide me, please,” he asked the TARDIS.
A lever on the console lit up, and he flipped it. Then a button. He pressed it. Then another. And so he fell into rhythm, and slowly, the ship started moving.
The screen flashed with coordinates. Nardole laughed as the familiar wheezing began.
The screen lit up and showed the fading view of the camp, the Cybermen being left behind.
Nardole laughed in glee.
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
“And you came from where?” the General asked.
Nardole, who was sitting in his office, was nervous; this was the Doctor’s thing.
“Uhm… we came from a Cyber ship.”
“A Cyber ship.” The General stared into his eyes intensely.
Nardole fidgeted. “You have beautiful eyes, they would sell for a lot,” he quipped, immediately regretting it. He bit his lip as the serious man stared at him coldly.
“And you are the leader?”
Nardole knew he was assessing him.
“Sort of. I didn’t want to be, but it was a mission bestowed on me,” Nardole said, faking confidence. He puffed out his chest and pretended he was the Doctor.
The General opened a file. “And that blue box?” he asked, pointing at the ship outside the window.
“It’s my boss’s ship.”
The man laced his hands together, raising an eyebrow at the statement. “And where is this boss?”
Nardole inspected his nails. ‘ That’s something he would do, right?’ He looked the man in his cold eyes and gulped silently. “My boss… is gone for now.”
“Alright, Mister Nardole. These people can stay.”
After a stare-off that lasted for what felt like hours, the General stood up. Nardole followed his lead and stood up too. The man approached Nardole and offered his hand, a smile now on his face.
Nardole took it and hid his pain, flashing a smile at the man.
“Oh, that’s a firm handshake. Are you a robot?”
The General scoffed and let go, then strode out of his office. The door slid open. Nardole jumped in place, letting out a silent scream. He shook his hand and composed himself before following.
He took a place beside the General, who addressed the crowd.
“Welcome, people. I’m the General, the leader of this colony.”
The people said hello in unison, and then the General motioned for them to quiet down.
“You will be given shelter, and the people capable of working shall be assessed and given a job fitting of their assessment.”
The crowd whispered among each other.
“Welcome to Aridia.”
He walked away then. A bunch of people started guiding the group, and they followed toward a big white building.
Nardole’s eyes followed the General’s retreating form. ‘I wish I had confidence like that.’ Nardole looked away as the General glanced back. He adjusted his gloves and whistled a tune.
“Come along,” one of the soldiers told Nardole.
“Oh, I’m not staying.”
The man nodded, saluted, and ran off to meet up with the group.
Nardole was headed back to the TARDIS when Olandra approached.
“Oh, deary, thank you so much for saving us.” She took hold of his gloved hands and planted a kiss on them.
“It was no problem,” he told her. He was quite fond of the old lady; she reminded him of his mother.
“Why aren’t you with the group, Olandra?”
She put a finger on her lips. “That’s a secret.”
“Goodbye, Olandra.”
She let go of his hands, patted him on the shoulders.
“Goodbye…”
Nardole’s face fell, his mouth agape. “You don’t know my name!”
Olandra cackled at his reaction. “Just wanted a reaction out of ya, Nardole.”
She wiped a tear away from her eye as Nardole pouted, arms crossed.
“Have a great life, dear!” she yelled as Nardole stood at the TARDIS doors. He gave a single wave and stepped inside.
“Oh,” he said as he stepped into the console room. It was now the one he had piloted.
“That makes it easier. I don’t have to go looking.”
Nardole went to the seat and sat down. His feet hurt.
‘How? They’re cybernetic.’
“Can you take me to the Doctor now?” Nardole asked, his gaze locked on the monitor. It said no.
“Why not?” He was confused. They had one more trip.
The monitor changed again: “The Doctor will come to us?” Nardole read out loud.
“Alright, if you say so. Let’s get going, and then sleep.”
Nardole was exhausted. The TARDIS guided him, and off they went.
Nardole peeked through the doors to see where they were.
“A cliff.”
He stepped out and looked around.
“Terrible vacation spot.”
He looked back at the TARDIS.
“Couldn’t you have taken me somewhere nice?”
He shook his head and went back in.
“So, how long until the Doctor turns up? I swear, if he brings trouble again-”
The TARDIS flipped the monitor toward him, and it read.
“Years!”
Nardole looked at it in shock.
“I have to wait years? This will be even more boring than when I got stuck in that bathroom stall for a decade.”
Repairs? the TARDIS asked on the screen.
Nardole was thinking.
“I’ll try. I’m not the Doctor. But who needs the Doctor? I’m smart enough.”
It started with doubt and ended in boasting. Nardole was psyched up.
The TARDIS hummed, and Nardole prepared to spend years, when a yawn escaped him.
“Alright, sorry, TARDIS. I’ll start tomorrow. Nardie needs his sleep, or he’ll be cranky.”
The TARDIS guided him back to his room, and as soon as he hit the bed, he was out.
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
“Nardole, wake up.”
Nardole didn’t want to, he was feeling comfortable.
“Nardole!” They tried again, but Nardole refused to get up.
“Nardole, I know you're not asleep,” the voice said with matter-of-factness.
“Five more minutes, Mom,” he muttered as he clung to his pillow.
Suddenly, fingers opened his eyes.
“You wish I was your mother.”
Nardole jumped up. “Professor Song!” he scrambled out of bed as the curly-haired woman let go of him.
“My excuses, I didn’t-”
She held up her hand. “It’s fine, Nardole.” She took a seat at his desk as Nardole put on his clothes.
“Have you seen-” he squinted at her.
“Your glasses.” She threw them at him, and he put them on, and suddenly his room turned into the hotel on Darillium.
Nardole couldn’t move his body, his head stuck on Hydroflex again.
“What’s going on?” he asked, staring at the empty room.
Heels sounded from behind him, and then the body moved on its own.
“Professor Song?” he asked as she watched him.
“I’m proud of you, Nardole. You did good.”
Nardole looked at her, confused. Suddenly, he shrank and was back to himself, and he was standing in a big garden. Professor Song was in a white dress and came up to him.
“Are you getting married again, ma’am?” he asked, observing her dress.
“Oh, Nardole, I am done with that.”
Suddenly, they were sitting on a bench.
“I am not actually here, Nardole.”
Nardole nodded, sadness clouding his features. “I know. This is the third time I’m dreaming about someone I’ve lost.”
‘YOU DID THIS TO ME!’
Nardole’s fists clenched at the reminder.
‘Goodbye, Nardole’
Nardole gripped his pants tightly.
River patted his shoulder. “Oh, I’m not dream.”
Nardole unclenched his fists and looked at her in confusion.
“I implanted a communicator within you so I could appear at the time you fulfilled your promise to care for the Doctor,” River smiled at him.
“But, I didn't. The Doctor got left behind.” Nardole rubbed his hands, rubbing away the ache of gripping so tight.
“I know he regenerated, but he still isn’t back. The TARDIS assures me he’ll be back-”
“I hear a but coming.” River crossed her legs as she waited for Nardole to continue.
“But, I failed at every step. The Doctor kept grieving and only got better when-” he stopped himself. He wasn’t ready to talk about her. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath.
“He got a new companion, and it was like he was a whole new person,” Nardole looked down, ashamed. “But it wasn’t because of my help.”
“Oh, Nardole, you stupid cyborg.” She hit him over the head with her hand.
Nardole looked at her, pouting. “I’m not stupid.”
River quirked an eyebrow.
“Fine. I'm stupid.” Nardole’s posture deflated as he sank more into the bench.
“Nardole, it’s because of you that the Doctor felt confident enough to get a new companion. Do you really think he didn’t enjoy your company?” She asked, taking one of his hands in hers.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head.
“He did,” she reassured him. “If he didn’t, he would have dropped you off on a distant planet and never come back. Seeing as he didn’t-”
“He did that,” he admitted, “But he came back after a week.”
River nodded, a fond smile playing at her lips.
“He realised he didn’t want to be alone.” She smiled. “Believe in yourself, Nardole. You are a good friend.”
She started fading.
Nardole nodded, tears clouding his eyes. “Thank you, ma’am. I needed this.”
“You can do this, Nardole. We will be seeing each other again.”
And then she was gone, and he was back in his room, sitting in bed, alone, but with a little less of a burden on his mind.
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
Year One: Day One
Nardole wrote in his new diary, “Went outside to scout the area.” He scribbled a doodle of himself going out.
“Immediately went back in; the planet was too scary.” He doodled himself running back inside.
He tapped the pen against his chin. “I swear I'm forgetting something...”
The TARDIS hummed in displeasure.
“What’s wrong, girl? Did you eat the fish sticks? Do you have indigestion because of them, because-” He held his hand near his mouth and whispered, “Same.”
The TARDIS had enough and deposited him into the broken console room.
“Oi! That hurt.” He rubbed his behind and got back up.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked. He took the monitor and read the message: Repairs!
“Oh, that’s what I forgot. Sorry, girl.”
“Where do I start?” he asked. The monitor answered: The interior circuit.
Nardole was led to it by the TARDIS. It was a big panel on the console. Suddenly, a toolbox dropped on his head.
The TARDIS hummed too happily.
Nardole looked up in offence as he rubbed what was going to be a bump. “That wasn’t necessary, was it?”
The TARDIS hummed.
Nardole gave her a dirty look. “Okay, I’ll try fixing it.”
Nardole doodled himself with a screwdriver, and then himself getting electrocuted and set on fire.
He scrunched up his face as the pencil stopped. “I didn’t even do anything that time.”
“Then I got booted out of the console room.” He doodled himself being launched out.
“Due to the redecorator being booted up.” He doodled the TARDIS surrounded by tools.
He closed his diary, stood up, tripped over his shoe, and went to sleep.
Year One: Day Seven
Nardole wandered through the halls, trying to find the console room. He had received a notification from the TARDIS that the console room had been finished.
“Oh, I’m excited! What will it look like? Will there be candy?” He shook his head and kept following the lights.
“Alright, here we go—” The hallway door slid open.
"Oh. That’s different.” Nardole scratched his head.
He walked down the honeycomb steps, up to one of the crystal pillars.
“Is this a dead spider?”
He shivered at the thought. The pillars reminded him of the other spare console room.
He approached the console and inspected every piece of it.
“I have no idea what all these are.”
Then he came up to a dispenser.
“Custard cream.” Nardole munched down on it and quite liked it.
He pointed down at it and muttered, mouth full. “My favourite part so far!”
He looked up and pleaded, “Can you make it a dual dispenser? Some candy cane for good ol’ Nardie?”
The TARDIS hummed and dispensed candy cane.
“Thank you!”
Nardole threw away the custard cream and immediately got a bucket of water dumped on him.
“I deserve that,” he said, wiping water from his glasses. His body briefly sparked but luckily stopped.
Then he slid his hands over the walls. He couldn’t describe what they looked like, but they looked cool. He briefly got his hand stuck but pulled it out by falling.
Nardole doodled the TARDIS interior.
“What are we fixing today?”
The TARDIS led him to another room, and that’s where he spent the rest of the day fixing the shielding systems.
He drew the TARDIS holding a shield.
He closed his diary and moved to his bathroom. He washed his hands and splashed his face with water. When he looked up, the TARDIS left him a message on the mirror: Food!
He screamed in delight and sped off to find the now redecorated kitchen.
Year One: Day Sixty-Five
Nardole had fixed most systems. Today, he had found the TARDIS manual, or more so, it had found him, so he decided to start learning how to fly her. The TARDIS had not-so-subtly hinted that she wanted him to learn.
He had found the library again and, after reading a few comics and getting chased around by multiple animals, he didn’t even get how the TARDIS did it , he sat down to read the manual.
A sticky note was on the first page: “This is stupid.” – The Doctor
“Did he actually read it? I thought he said he hadn’t.”
The sticky note changed: ‘He lied.’
“Of course he did,” Nardole muttered.
He removed the note and began reading.
Nardole doodled himself reading.
Year One: Day One Hundred Thirty
“When will the Doctor be back?” Nardole whined as he turned the TARDIS invisible.
He’d been getting knocks at the door, and the TARDIS had made him fix it to keep her hidden.
The TARDIS didn’t hum this time.
“I’ll just go track her down.”
The TARDIS had finally been able to get an image of the Doctor, and she looked different, obviously, seeing as she became a woman.
Nardole, having finished half the manual, was confident he could track the blonde down.
The TARDIS hummed a warning, but Nardole didn’t listen.
“Look, I’m bored and tired of waiting.”
He pulled down the dematerialisation lever, his hand got stuck on it, and nothing happened.
“Wha—”
He didn’t get to finish as a wrench was dropped on his head, and he was knocked out.
“Nardole, get your tin ass out of bed.”
Nardole sprang up at the voice. He swore he was alone.
When he put on his glasses, he was shocked to see the Doctor.
“You’re here!”
He jumped up in joy and then in displeasure.
“You know how bored I was.”
The Doctor quirked an eyebrow. “I’m not here. You’re dreaming again.”
The Doctor snapped her fingers and they appeared in the console room, where they stood next to his knocked-out self.
“That meanie, the TARDIS, knocked me out.” Nardole pouted, sitting down on the steps with a huff.
“She did,” the Doctor agreed.
She sat down next to him, her grey coat falling between the cracks of the steps.
“Why are you still acting grumpy?”
Nardole dragged his face down to make it look grumpy.
The dream Doctor rolled her eyes.
Nardole knew enough about regeneration to know that the personality of a Time Lord changes.
“Idiot,” she said.
“You haven’t met me. You don’t know her personality yet, so your mind just makes her act like before.”
Nardole nodded at the logic.
“Now wake up!” She yelled, and he shot up, his hands immediately nursing the bruise.
He looked up with furrowed eyebrows. “Can you not do that, please, Bluey?”
The TARDIS hummed.
“I know you don’t feel bad,” he huffed.
The TARDIS let out a melody.
“I knew it!” he pointed up. “Listen here, missy—”
A chicken appeared.
And he started running.
“NOT AGAIN!!!!”
Year Two: Day Fifty
The TARDIS made a groaning noise he had never heard before.
“Are you alright, Bluey?” The TARDIS hummed in affirmation. Nardole’s forehead furrowed.
“Then what is doing that?”
The TARDIS hummed warningly.
“You don’t want me doing anything?” She was never like that. That meant he needed to back off, and he’d do so gladly.
“Alright.”
Nardole didn’t notice the red eyes observing his every move.
Year Two: Day Three Hundred
“Happy Birthday to me!”
Nardole blew out the candle. The TARDIS made confetti appear.
“At least I think it’s my birthday.” Nardole counted his fingers. “Ah, who cares,” he said as he picked up a piece of cake and took a bite.
“It’s really delicious, Bluey,” Nardole said, his mouth full.
“I remember when Bill got me a toy car for my birthday. I wonder where I left it.” He shrugged and dove back into the cake.
He had decided to start sharing about Bill again. The TARDIS had encouraged it, and it still hurt every time he talked about her, but it felt good. He didn’t have to hide a part of himself anymore.
Suddenly, the lights in the TARDIS all dimmed, and red ones took their residence. Nardole dropped his piece of cake.
“Bluey, everything okay?” he asked. He got no response.
Nardole’s stomach dropped. He got a bit scared.
“Right. I’m alone.”
Nardole got up, his legs shaking as he moved into the hallway. He looked left and right, and that’s when he saw a shadow.
He lost it and ran as fast as he could. He could hear something scraping on the floor. He took a look back, and became pale white. It was some type of metal monster.
“I don’t wanna die!” he yelled as he cowered in a corner, the metal monster approaching him slowly. Somehow, it had a mouth, and it was salivating.
The monster raised its claw, and then it disappeared, and a humming laughter echoed through the hall.
Nardole sat there, breathing hard, his mechanical heart beating loudly. And then it struck him.
“WHAT WAS THAT FOR!?”
Suddenly, an image of him damaging the console trying to escape hit him, and he looked sheepish.
“Uhm... I’m sorry.”
The monster appeared again.
And he started running again.
“I’m going to tell the Doctor!”
Year Five: Day Seventy-Eight
Nardole, having finally finished the manual, was allowed one trip by the TARDIS, and he chose to go back to St Luke’s University.
“Good morning, Nardole,” the Principal greeted.
“Uhm... Good morning!” He hadn’t spoken to another person in five years, he wasn’t sure if he could still do it.
He coughed, steeling his nerves. “The Doctor will be back in a few months.”
Nardole fidgeted as the man stared at him.
“Where has he gone?”
Nardole tried thinking of an excuse.
“He’s on a trip to see his wife.”
The Principal adjusted some papers and nodded.
“Very well.”
Nardole furrowed his forehead.
“See you,” he said, and walked away.
“Goodbye, Nardole. See you in a few months.”
Nardole nodded and closed the door.
He took a moment to reflect on the situation. And danced in triumph.
He then moved back up to the Doctor’s office and put a keep out sign on the door. Once inside, he locked the door and tidied up. As he passed the mug with Sonic Screwdrivers, he plucked the one with the yellow part and black stripes out.
“Mine now!”
He put it in his pocket as quickly as he could, his eyes nervously searching the room for the Doctor.
After stealing, he took some blankets and covered everything in the room with them.
“We’re off then.”
He moved to get back inside the TARDIS, but she locked him out.
She flashed an image of Bill inside his head.
“Bill?”
Nardole felt a pang of hurt.
The TARDIS showed him another image, Bill’s apartment.
Nardole sighed, his eyes growing heavy. “I don’t know if I’m ready to go there, Bluey. I-”
The TARDIS locked her doors even tighter. Nardole rubbed his forehead at her antics.
“Fine!”
He relented and was off to Bill’s apartment.
Nardole stood in front of Bill’s door for hours just staring at it. Every time he reached for the handle, he was hit by the memory of Cyber Bill.
Nardole bit his lip, hard enough to draw blood. He pulled out the newly stolen screwdriver and unlocked the door.
He quickly stepped in and closed the door. He slipped down as his heart pounded. He breathed heavily as he tried to regain his composure. After a few minutes, he had calmed enough to get up.
He made his way down the hall. Pictures of Bill and her mother covered one wall, and the other was covered in pictures of him, her, and the Doctor.
He stopped at one particular picture, the only one where the Doctor was actually smiling with them. He quietly sobbed as he looked at Bill.
“I am so sorry, Bill,” he whispered, wiping away his tears.
Nardole trudged further into Bill’s apartment. It still looked lived in. Obviously, it did; it had been just a day since they had left to go on their trip.
Nardole cleaned her place up, dusting everything. After he was done, it looked pristine.
“My gift to you, Bill,” he said quietly. He had a hard time talking while here.
He went into her closet and pulled out a box. He went back into the hallway and took down the pictures of them.
“These deserve to be in the TARDIS.”
His hands shook with every picture that went into the box.
Nardole went into Bill’s living room. After taking one good look, he turned off the lights, picked up the box, and walked to the front door.
The door opened. He stepped through.
“Goodbye, Bill. You were the best of friends.”
Arriving back at St Luke’s, Nardole swiftly moved back up to the Doctor’s office, and the moment he stepped through, the TARDIS doors unlocked.
He quickly moved in. He let out a breath of air he didn’t know he was holding.
“Thank you for pushing me to do that.”
He paused, touching the crystal pillar in thanks. “I needed it.”
The TARDIS let out a comforting hum, and Nardole smiled.
Nardole’s mood flipped like a switch.
“And how dare you lock me out!”
He stormed toward the console and started running around it to set the controls off.
The TARDIS hummed at his rant. Nardole only stopped when the TARDIS wheezing started up.
“And one more thing-”
The TARDIS was about to boot him into the pool when he pulled out a picture.
“Is there a good place to hang these?”
The TARDIS pulled back the boot.
He was safe this time.
Year Eight: Day Twenty
“Right, Cardiff,” Nardole muttered. He really disliked being there, something always happened when he was in Cardiff. He shivered as he remembered that awful man-creature that ripped off his cybernetic hand.
“Couldn’t we have gone to the rift in California?” Nardole asked while looking at the holographic screen.
The TARDIS answered: More energy here.
Nardole’s head slumped. “You know what else has got more en—”
Nardole was cut off by the TARDIS zapping him.
“Fine!” He threw up his hands in defeat and went out to enjoy his day. Twenty-four hours, he was stuck here.
Nardole popped back in quickly. “Uhm... when are we?”
The TARDIS flashed to the date.
“September 2006. Blimey.”
Nardole made his way to one of the restaurants. He was hungry.
“Can I have the chips and steak, please, and some orange juice?”
The waiter looked at him oddly but wrote it down.
“Thank you,” Nardole chirped happily.
Getting bored of waiting, Nardole pulled out a colouring book and started colouring. What he didn’t notice was a big-eared man in a leather jacket enter, with a blonde lady handcuffed to him.
“Here is your food, sir.”
Nardole pulled away his colouring book and put it back in his bag. He thanked the waiter and happily munched down on the food. He let out a moan of pleasure as the taste hit his tongue.
“The only good reason to come to Cardiff.”
Nardole’s meal was devoured at speeds unknown. He quickly jumped up, left some bills, and walked out.
With hours left before he could depart, Nardole wandered the streets until he passed a comic book store. He quickly went in and browsed through the comics.
“Oh! Spider-Man!”
Nardole then scrunched up his nose.
“I don’t like spiders.”
He dropped the comic back.
Nardole’s finger stopped on Daredevil, his mind going back to when the Doctor was blind. Daredevil kicked ass while blind, and so did the Doctor when he was. He decided to get three issues.
He paid at the register, and as soon as he was out, he started reading the first one. He stumbled into a lot of objects and people while he read.
He swore he felt the ground shake at one point, but kept going.
“Gonna search the TARDIS library for more,” he announced as he finished the third one.
He looked down at his watch, and his eyes flew open.
“Five hours left!?”
How long had he been reading?
He ran back off towards the TARDIS, missing the second TARDIS just nearby.
“Nardie’s home,” he announced, and the TARDIS hummed in greeting.
“I’m off to the library, gotta read about a blind guy.”
The TARDIS hummed, and Nardole was off. The TARDIS’s holographic screen booted up as she watched the Doctor, the one freshly out of the Time War.
She missed her thief.
Year Ten: Day Three Hundred Ninety
It started just like any other day.
“Give me back my pants!” he yelled at the TARDIS roof.
Nardole erased that line.
It started just like any other day.
“There you go, all fixed up!” Then the emergency bell started ringing.
“What’s going on!” Nardole yelled in panic. An image appeared inside the console room with a message: Doctor approaching!
Nardole froze.
“Finally!” he shouted, dropping his tools on the floor. He ran for the doors.
“Ten years,” he sighed. He straightened his clothes and waited for the doors to open.
Nardole and the TARDIS had decided to make the Doctor think that she had been phasing in and out of time.
Nardole snickered. The plan had come to him at midnight, and the TARDIS had made it possible. He loved the ship.
Nardole could hear running happening outside the door, and then a voice. His hands became sweaty at that moment, nervousness setting in.
“Hello, you. I've missed you,” the Doctor patted the box lovingly. A part of her began to fill in again, and a soft hum rang through her mind. She assessed the ship, noticing the black plate and the new exterior.
“Ah, you've done yourself up. Very nice.” She patted her pockets, looking for her key. She came up empty-handed.
“Lost my key. Sorry.”
Nardole looked around. Could she see inside? God, he hoped she hadn’t seen him run around with his pants off. He paled at the thought, shivering at the conversation it would lead to.
Nardole took hold of the handle and opened the door a bit. He looked up at the TARDIS, shaking his head, and he quietly muttered, “Lost her key. Typical.” The TARDIS let out a silent hum in agreement.
“But it's an old police box.”
Nardole frowned. She brought home a stray. Typical. That’s two ‘typicals. ’ Has she actually changed? The TARDIS hummed again, like she was shrugging.
“Sort of. Not really,” she replied.
Another voice spoke up. She brought two!
“You expect us to all fit inside there?”
“Yep,” the Doctor answered, popping her ‘p.’
Another voice. ‘Three!’ That’s a step up from just Bill and him.
“At the same time?” the girl asked, voice laced with skepticism.
“Wanna try?” He could hear the glee from the Doctor. She wanted to hear the “bigger on the inside” spiel again. He rolled his eyes.
‘Typical.’
Okay, I need to stop saying that word. My mouth is gonna get stuck saying it.
“Okay,” one of the voices said.
The door was opening, until it stopped. Nardole’s heart was racing now. How would she react? Angry? Happy? He should’ve practised more.
“Oh, word of warning. I left it in a bit of a mess.” ‘Already clean, Ma’am.’
The door fully opened, and Nardole stared right into the Doctor’s face. Her mouth was agape, and she looked between him and the door.
“Nardole?” she asked, unsure. Was she hallucinating? Had her regeneration done something? She pinched herself, her eyes closing. She popped one eye open, and he was still there. Bald head, glasses, and weird fashion style and all.
“The one and only, Ma’am.”
The Doctor slowly approached and poked him with her finger. Her hearts raced as she felt his cybernetic body beneath her finger.
“You’re here,” she said, almost not believing it. Last time she had seen him, she swore she had sent him to his death. She replayed the moment in her head and then looked at his face. Had he matured?
She fidgeted for a moment, her hearts pounding at speeds they hadn’t before. Then a smile wormed its way onto her face.
“You’re here!” she repeated excitedly. She couldn’t contain herself and bounced towards him, embracing him.
Nardole’s eyes widened at the contact, but he hugged back.
“That’s new.”
“New me. Don’t expect it every time, though,” she answered in a joking tone. But beyond that, she was so relieved to see him alive. She had seen Clara and Bill again when she was dying, but she hadn’t seen Nardole, and now she knew why.
Nardole smiled as he enjoyed the hug. He had truly missed her. Thirteen years it had been since he had seen her, well, sort of her, never mind. A part of him fell back into place.
The Doctor let go, still looking at him in disbelief.
“Do I have something on my face?” Nardole wiped at his face.
“But how did you get he—”
She was interrupted as Yaz, Ryan, and Graham entered.
They stopped just behind Nardole and the Doctor.
“Are we interrupting a family reunion?” Graham asked, pointing between the pair.
“Who’s he?” Ryan asked, looking around the room in confusion at the same time. His mouth fell open as he realised how big it was.
‘Wicked, ’ he thought.
“Who’s he? Who’s you?” Nardole replied, moving further into the console room. He flipped a button on the console, slamming the doors shut. He smirked, satisfied, as the others jumped a little.
“I’m Ryan Sinclair,” he replied, fidgeting slightly.
Nardole looked between the three and the Doctor. Graham spoke up, a teasing smile in place. “Is that your husband?”
The Doctor sputtered, waving her hands frantically. Nardole looked horrified.
“Not in a thousand years!” they both yelled at the same time.
They looked between each other, offended but relieved.
“Not your husband. Noted,” Graham wrote it down on an imaginary notepad.
Ryan rolled his eyes.
Yas just looked confused. “Then who is he?”
The Doctor, still reeling from everything, blurted out: “He’s my assistant.”
“I’m the one who cares, so she doesn’t have to. And her caretaker. She makes really dumb decisions sometimes,” he said, patting the console.
The TARDIS hummed in agreement.
“Nardole!” the Doctor whined.
He noticed her eyes, the same ones from before. They held that same fury. The oncoming storm was still there, buried deeper, but still there. Oh, he had done it now. He bit his lip and looked away.
“Assistant, alright,” Yas said, staring at Nardole for a moment longer and then quietly whispering with Ryan.
After their stare-off, Nardole observed as the Doctor and the other three talked about the TARDIS.
‘She won. She got the classic “Bigger on the inside” line.’
Nardole thought back to when Bill had said it. His smile became nostalgic, yet his grip tightened on the console.
Nardole decided to speak up when the Doctor was talking about getting them home.
“She can’t. But I can.”
The Doctor looked offended. “I can!” she said, pouting.
“Really? How about that time when-”
She shushed him. “Don’t start, Nardole.”
That she hadn’t missed the constant mom-ing from him. Why did she let him stay again?
She grumbled, moving up to him and bounced from one foot to the other.
“Can’t you let me have fun once?”
He quirked a nonexistent eyebrow. “That’s not what I promised your wife.”
“You have a wife?” the other three asked in shock.
“She does.”
The Doctor gave him a glare to shut it, and Nardole backed up. That was the previous her shining through.
The Doctor smirked. ‘Yep, still got it.’
She stuck her tongue out at Nardole, who looked away, pouting. ‘Just like old times.’
Beginning to grow restless again, she started running around the console, testing it. She loved the new console, it soothed how she felt. The Gallifreyan symbols scattered all around made her really happy.
The TARDIS groaned as she switched on the epsilon system. She grimaced and gave a pat to apologise. The TARDIS hummed in her head.
Nardole came to the side she was just at and disabled the system.
“Can I at least help?” Nardole asked her.
She looked at him with a smile. “Yeah, sounds good, Nardole!”
Her eyes held a warning, though, don’t outshine me or else.
Nardole nodded, and then saw her face change back to happiness.
“Is that a custard cream?” she said excitedly.
Nardole sidled up and pressed again, and got a candy cane.
“And candy cane! You outdid yourself.” The Doctor patted the console affectionately.
Graham came up to Nardole. “Does she always talk to the ship?”
Nardole got startled, suddenly dropping his candy cane. “Aw, my cane!”
“We’ll get you a new one, mate,” Graham reassured.
Nardole smiled. “She does talk to her a lot, as do I. The Old Girl is alive.” He felt a warm feeling under his fingers then.
Yas, who was leaning against a pillar, asked, “Seriously, the ship is alive?”
She quirked an eyebrow. “How does that work?”
Nardole turned to the Doctor, who was smiling at them. “Oh, she just is.”
Nardole sighed. Right. She had developed a worse habit, just answer nothing.
“A TARDIS is grown. It isn’t made,” he explained, pulling up an image of one being grown.
They all looked at the image as it appeared on the holographic screen.
“Like a plant,” Ryan observed.
“Not really. Nice try, though,” Nardole said as he closed the screen.
“Can we go now?” The Doctor was practically bouncing to start flying the TARDIS.
“Just put us in the vortex, Doctor. These humans need sleep, they’re exhausted.”
He motioned between them and dragged a finger under his eyes, motioning that they had bags under their eyes. Just because Time Lords only needed to sleep every two weeks… he shook his head.
“Right, are you guys tired? I’m not tired. Although we ran a lot… yeah, sleep sounds good. Let’s get you guys a room!”
She popped back up. “Actually tired?”
Nardole stared. That was fast talk. She had a bigger motor mouth than him, and that was quite impressive.
“Yeah, I could use some sleep. Being sucked into space does that,” Graham said, rubbing his neck. It had begun to feel stiff. He might be too old for this.
“Yeah, sleep would be nice,” Ryan agreed. He ached all over.
The Doctor looked hopefully at Yas, but Yas gave a tired smile. “Yeah, tired as well.”
Nardole smirked. Another day without danger. He was satisfied.
He smirked at the TARDIS roof, she hummed joyfully at their antics, happy to have her Thief and Maintainer both with her.
The Doctor deflated and muttered, “Killjoys.”
She ran her finger over the take-off lever longingly.
“If you’d all follow me, I’ll show you to the sleeping quarters,” Nardole said. He glanced at the Doctor as they were about to head off. “I see you sulking, Ma’am.”
She shot up and glared at him.
“I take my words back, I didn’t-”
Nardole interrupted, cupping a hand around his ear. “Can’t hear you! I’m going through a tunnel!”
“NARDOLE!” the Doctor yelled. ‘ Why is he here again?’ she asked herself once more. She heard the TARDIS chuckle-hum and pouted.
“Come on, she’s gonna strangle me. We'd better hurry!”
Nardole ran once the doors fully closed, the others following, amused at the two’s antics.
Nardole huffed as he caught his breath. They had ran halfway to their destination.
“Did we lose her?” he asked between breaths.
Graham clapped him on the back. “Yeah, we did,” he assured.
“She wasn’t actually following,” Ryan said with a matter-of-fact voice.
Graham shot him a look.
“Sorry,” he apologised. ‘ Just stating the obvious,’ he thought to himself.
“It’s fine,” Nardole got back up, adjusting his glasses. “Alright, follow me.”
After ten years, he knew these halls like the back of his hand, except when the TARDIS moved hallways. And she only did that when he messed up. Seems that today was not such a day.
She hummed again, confirming his theory. He did a mental dance in triumph.
“What’s the humming noise? Some type of plant plumbing?” Ryan asked, a small chuckle escaping him.
“It’s the TARDIS talking-” Nardole paused, his face going serious. “Except if you hear groaning, that’s either a noise we don’t question or me running because of her.”
“It talks? It’s actually alive?” Ryan asked, trying to get his head around all the space weirdness.
“Yeah, and she isn’t an it . I got thrown in the pool for saying that.”
He shuddered. “So call her she .”
The TARDIS let out a threatening hum.
“Right. She is alive?” Yas rolled her eyes. She didn’t believe it for a second that a ship could be alive, it didn’t make sense.
“So how long have ya known her, what was it... Nardole?” Yas asked.
“Yeah, my name’s Nardole. Don’t overuse it,” he winked. She gave him a blank stare.
“I’ve known the Doctor,” Nardole started thinking, ‘
If I add one and subtract two…’
“Around three hundred years.”
They all stopped midway through the hall, and Nardole froze. Was the Doctor here? He frantically looked left and right.
“Three hundred years?!” they all said in shock.
“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” Nardole asked, genuinely confused.
“But you’re human. How is that possible?”
“Oh, I’m not human.”
Nardole was actually quite offended at that, but didn’t let it show. ‘ Him, human? He’d rather be Sontaran.’
“Then what are you?” Yas asked, squinting her eyes at him, trying to get a proper read on the man-child.
“Cyborg,” Nardole stated bluntly. He knocked on his stomach, and it made a clanging noise.
Ryan looked at him in awe. “Cyborgs are real? Like actual proper cyborgs?”
Nardole nodded with a smile.
“Yeah, they’re real. They’re not as cool as you think. I used to have a friend who became a fish cyborg. It got awkward when I flushed him down the toilet.”
“Moving on.” He started moving again and looked back, they still stood there.
“Oi, get a move on!”
They all scrambled to catch up again.
“Here we are. And look, the TARDIS has given you all a room already,” he said, motioning to the doors with name plaques.
Graham walked up to his door.“That was fast. Couldn’t even get a room that fast at a hotel.”
Graham walked in.
Ryan approached the door to his room.
“Oh my god!” Ryan exclaimed. “It’s amazing! How did she do it? This is the room I’ve always wished to have.”
Nardole shrugged. “The TARDIS just knows somehow.” He wasn’t gonna tell them she was actually in their heads and could read their thoughts; he didn’t fancy getting hit.
“Right. I love this ship!” Ryan exclaimed, then closed the door.
“It’s great to hear he’s excited,” Graham said with a fond smile. As he turned, it became sorrowful. He silently closed the door.
Nardole caught a brief glance of a picture of an older lady on the nightstand. He shrugged, none of his business.
Nardole was about to leave when he spotted Yas.
“You don’t have to be afraid to go into it. No monsters under the bed, I promise.”
Yas just gave him an odd look and walked into her room without saying another word.
“Well, that was weird.”
⋆⭒⧗⭒⋆
“Right, time to face the music.” The wall slid aside, and Nardole stepped back into the console room.
The Doctor stood at the console, staring into the new crystal time rotor. Her eyes held the heaviness of her true age.
“Ma’am,” Nardole greeted as he stood next to her. An unspoken weight hung between them, just waiting to be poked at.
“How did you get back, Nardole?” she asked seriously. Nardole could hear the grief in her voice.
Nardole stroked the TARDIS comfortingly. “She came back for me.” The Doctor stroked the TARDIS as well.
“What about the people on that ship, Nardole?”He could hear the accusing undertone. She thinks he abandoned them.
“Are you accusing me of leaving them to die?” he accused her.
The Doctor faced him. “I don’t know what to think,” she sighed, rubbing a hand over her face. She felt so tired.
The TARDIS hummed comfortingly. The Doctor smiled at that. “Always trying to make me feel good.”
“I didn’t let them die,” Nardole spoke up with quiet determination, and the Doctor looked at him.
“I spent three years protecting them. Three years without knowing if you were dead or not.”
Nardole took a breath. “But I kept it together, and I led them through Cyber attack to Cyber attack.”
“The last one, we were surrounded, and I thought, ‘Finally, I can die in peace.’ ”
The Doctor reached out and patted him on the shoulder as comfortingly as she could.
“That was until she came. She saved me from doing something stupid. And I saved them, and we took those people to an Earth colony where they would be safe.”
Nardole felt lighter after confessing it, like he had needed to speak it out loud for it to be actually true.
The Doctor smiled at him, a megawatt smile. “Nardole, I’m proud of you. You did good.”
Nardole looked at her angrily. He had one question he needed answered. “Why didn’t you come to find me?”
The Doctor pulled her hand back. She looked away from his furious face and looked down in shame.
“I wanted to die,” she confessed to him.
Nardole looked at her in shock. “Why?” he asked.
The Doctor looked him straight in the eyes. “All I did was fail, Nardole. I failed Bill. I sent you to a life of running and your inevitable death and-”
The Doctor stopped then.
Nardole knew the next part. “And Missy turned on you.” She nodded. “But you’re here. You didn’t die.”
“I didn’t.” She smiled, a small one. A real one, not the fake ones she had been putting up for days.
“I’m glad you’re back, Nardole. I needed a reminder of my past.” Nardole smiled and patted her shoulder. “I made a promise to your wife. I’ll always be here.”
“Sometimes I wish you weren’t.” The Doctor smiled, bouncing up.
“I’m offended, ma’am.”
She waved him off. “Get over it!”
“I’ll take away your custard cream!” he threatened jokingly.
“You wouldn’t!” she said, shocked.
“I would. Bluey-”
The Doctor came rushing towards him. “Don’t!”
“Alright, you have to say I’m a good friend.”
She scrunched up her nose. “Do I have to?”
“Yes.” The TARDIS hummed in agreement.
“You’re a good friend.” She meant those words even if she had said them in an joking tone.
She pocketed her custard cream. “Alright. What do you say we go on a trip?”
She had her hand on the lever. “Like old times.”
“We shouldn’t. There are others onboard.”
The Doctor smiled at him, willing him to agree. “They won’t notice.”
Nardole sighed. He rubbed at his temple, ‘ from serious to unserious in an instant.’
He looked into her eyes and saw the adventurous spirit from before, and he sighed. “There’s no stopping you, is there?”
She shook her head, and the TARDIS also hummed no .
“Oi! You’re teaming up on me.”
Nardole took off his glasses, pointing them at her. “Fine. One trip!”
The Doctor was delighted, and the TARDIS sprang to life.
“I’m gonna regret this.”
The Doctor was laughing as the room shook.