A Continuum Of Doctors

"...Hi, Dad." Savannah is munching on a spear of celery, mostly ignoring what the Doctor is saying, as she can't understand the majority of it.

From:

"Hullo, Doctor." Polite smile for Eight, which disappears when he looks to his daughter.

"What're you doing here?"

From:

"She wandered in... I'm afraid I probably shouldn't have left that music going."

It isn't helping, of course, that the TARDIS is doing its best to be terribly inviting. It's the perfect temperature and there's a lovely scent wafting through the air....

From:

Savannah sniffs around. "ooh, are you baking cookies?"

From:

"Enh. Savannah..." Separating a teenager's brain from it's stomach can be difficult, even on a good day.

"... we should get out of the Doctor's hair. I'm sure he has a great deal of work to do." Right? Yes? Work?

From:

"Well, one of my other selves might be ... biscuits? Tea and biscuits?" He directs a stare at the wall. Yes, the wall.

Oh, no, not them...

He gets the subtelepathic reply that he needs someone with him. Someone other than a vampire and a Universal Constant whose solution to everything is sex. Or blowing things up. Or blowing things up and then sex....

I get the point.

"Ah... well, there is tea. I don't suppose you'd like a cup before you leave? Only you went to this trouble coming here."

It is only tea, right?

He hates it when his own ship is being inscrutable.

From:

"Really? Oh, that'd be lovely! You have such a nice hou- er, ship? It is a ship, right?" That's about all she understands of the Doctor's conversation as they were walking back from the celery farm. Her stomach, however, does not want to talk about the ship, but about those biscuits, and rumbles.

From:

"I... suppose it wouldn't be any harm to have a cup of tea and a biscuit or two." He gives Savannah a Look and then smiles. He's not one to stay angry long. Besides, that does smell like some nice, strong tea.

So, he'll follow along, stomach rumbling. Weird, he just ate an hour ago.

From:

"Well, it's a little of both, really," the Doctor admits as they head back into the interior. "Ship, yes, but it is also my home." That expression on his face is a bit unreadable. Home. He's off to save what should be his home but sometimes isn't, really.

Deep breath, Doctor.

The TARDIS is trying to make him ignore the fact that the corridors are ever-so-subtly changing behind them. Naughty of her, really, taking advantage of his inconsistent memory like that.

From:

"Aye, I understand. Home isn't always where you start out, is it?" Maybe he picked up a certain tone in the Doctor's voice.

From:

"A familiar concept to me." Slightly bitter. Tea?

From:

That's right, they'd both been displaced rather often, hadn't they?

He doesn't think about that. Instead, since they had, indeed, reached their destination, he looks inside the room in question.

Since the TARDISes had merged, there were a great many kitchens and pools and lavs and whatnot. Some were utilitarian, others nothing more than very well-stocked larders, still more something approaching professional food-preparation areas. Some had a distinctly domestic feel and others didn't.

This one simply reflected the preoccupation Eight had. Spacious, airy for an indoor room, and almost unrecognisable as a kitchen, it was as Gallifreyan as a food preparation area could get. Oh, well, some things were universal, such as cooking pots and various other utensils, and a giant stove that resembled something that burnt wood but whose heat-source was unfathomable.

But most kitchens did not possess graceful furniture, an odd fountain for a faucet, lights on spirals, walls made mostly of glass and metal, round sinks, or concealed doors.

From:

Gabriel winces, stung by Savannah's tone. He had been the cause for her uprooting, and there was no changing it. He still cursed himself on a regular basis about that mess.

Luckily, the kitchen was a major distraction from the thoughts buzzing in his head.

"A... is this a kitchen?" Whatever it is, it's ... hard to describe. Star Trek meets Victorian England, perhaps. But it feels comfortable.

From:

"Oooh, it's lovely!" Savannah has lots of experience with utilitarian kitchens (consider all the detention she's served), but hasn't been in such a fancy room dedicated to food preparation. But this is how Gallifreyans do things, apparently.

From:

"It is, rather. It's a bit posh, though, don't you think?" this last he directs at the room at large.

The air feels smug for a moment. Don't ask how a room can be smug, it just is. But only for a moment.

The Doctor shakes his head and walks into the room itself, easily locating the tea and biscuits they'd been smelling. "Kitchens like these are seen in higher-class areas of the Capitol on Gallifrey." Tea-pouring happens. Ooo, it is proper English tea, as he's gone and found milk and little sugar cubes. "It's almost a pity no-one's about in them but the cooks, but at least the cooks enjoy them."

From:

Gabriel is content. There is tea. And it is Proper. A little milk, and if he were a cat he'd be purring right now.

"If this is where the cooks work, I'd like to see the rest of the place." He finds a cushy place to sit, something squishy and velvet-coated. It's very comfortable, moreso than anything he's ever plopped himself on before.

From:

"Oh, I wouldn't mind being a cook in a Gallifreyan household, with a kitchen like this! Where do I sign up?"
It's a joke, mostly.

Savannah has found the little biscuits that come with Proper Tea. "Fantastic, these. D'you make them yourself?"

From:

The Doctor had found someplace nearby to sit, as well. "I hadn't made them myself, no."

The place is far too inviting. And he's not sure the tea is just tea.

A slight frown crosses his face, but it clears quickly. "As to a job cooking in one of these kitchens ... well, that's why I'm leaving. Not to go become a chef, no. To make sure places like these still exist. Gallifrey is in danger, you see." Oh, it was like pulling teeth to get him to say that and if there wasn't something nudging the words out, he never would have said it at all.

From:

"Oh, aye? That's not... erm." Hadn't Rassilon mentioned his home planet had been destroyed?

"That's horrible." Oh yes, he's getting very sleepy. "I hope everything works out... for you..."

Well, there goes one. He's sawing logs like a true lumberjack.

From:

Oh, isn't this the perfect place for a nap, though? She smiles at her sleeping dad, he's been so tired lately, and takes a big gulp of her tea. Fantastic stuff.

"Hmm, lovely. Is this...is this...d...decaf?" Apparently not. As soon as she sets down her teacup on her Saucer of Rassilon, she curls up and falls asleep.

From: