Work Text:
The Doctor didn't often get the chance to admire the Tardis from the outside. Oh, he'd spent many an hour toiling over her internal components, but he spent most of his time outside of the Tardis in a mad dash to get back inside.
She well surpassed any common police box; he couldn't remember any genuine article with such an air of magnificence. She was welcoming where others warded away. She beckoned the weary and promised adventure, excitement... or escape. Escape from this wretched-
"That's quite enough of that!" The Doctor shot up off of his stool. "You know as well as I do that you are in no state to 'escape' anywhere."
He turned his back to focus instead on his most recent project. Something was wrong with the dimensional stabilizer. There must be; the matter configurations had seemed correct. The relativity drive was calibrated according to Dartan's principles... or was it Caltassis' fourth elemental theory?
The Doctor held the stabilizer in unconfident hands. The Tardis creaked mournfully behind him. Suddenly, he felt the urge to smash the whole unit against the Brigadier's solid cinder block walls.
It caught him by surprise. He had to take a step back, away from the workstation. He could just see it, all the delicate flaps and scaling scattered across the floor. The precise spacings needed for no contact electronic transference thrown well out of alignment. And him, standing over the whole mess, with no idea of how to put it back together again.
He sighed, gently depositing the stabilizer in his coat pocket, and leaned back against the too solid presence of the Tardis behind him.
"I apologize my dear," he said. "It's not your fault we're stuck here."
Damn those Time Lords and their meddling.
"I won't let it happen again."