Dawn loved the inside of Giles’ TARDIS. She’d always felt safe there. Protected. She loved the arching vault of the control room ceiling and the curving pillars that encircled it, each with their own little inset alcove and hidden treasures lurking on their shelves. She loved the swirl of floor tiling that spun out from the centre of the room in a sun burst of honeyed gold until it faded into a deep soft red. She loved the wood panelling on the console at its heart, with its touch sensitive controls laid in like intricate marquetry - and she loved the walls that swept around her. The walls filled with books. Books from floor to ceiling. Books from door to door, and then on, into the passageways and the spaces beyond. An endless temptations of them, the start of a labyrinth of text and knowledge that touched every moment in time – and probably a few that lay beyond it.
She’d fallen in love with everything, the day she’d first stepped through its mockingly nondescript door. She’d worn a grin a mile wide as she’d watched Xander’s open mouthed reaction to finding himself in a vehicle that was larger on the inside than it was out – and once she’d been given permission to explore she’d flown from one side of the room to the other, caressing polished wood, admiring coloured glass, cataloguing works of art and sighing happily over the little incongruities that made it feel like home.
It had all these whimsical, little Gilsey touches, and few that might surprise but made perfect sense, once you knew. The weapon’s locker close by the outer door. The antique jukebox inset into one of the pillars. The semi-circular desk with its tiffany glass lamps. The inner doors, each with a different arcane inscription parading around them. The view screen set in among the bookshelves in a frame made of carved wood and gilded with real gold.
She loved it all. Especially the latest addition to the baroquely decorated room. It wasn’t a work of art, and it hadn’t been dug up from some tomb or other. It was just a simple, dark blue box with a light set at the top of it. It looked like an old style British police box.
But that wasn’t what it was.
It had taken a lot of careful manoeuvring and some very fancy flying to bring the Doctor’s time ship on board, one TARDIS nestled inside the other. But they’d avoided creating a temporal inversion loop, and had eventually managed to balance the time streams, weaving the thoughts and spirit of one machine into the existence of the other as if it truly belonged there.
It meant they could travel together, the Scoobies and the Doctor’s crew – not to mention allowing Jack and the Doctor to run a few maintenance checks and stuff while they did so. The Watcher’s TARDIS was a more sophisticated model and came equipped with some very fancy technology, but both machines were in need of some serious repairs; since Giles was a mystic and a magician, not a mechanic, he’d leapt at the chance to benefit from the Doctor’s technical expertise.
At least, that’s what he’d said, and he’d said it with a perfectly straight face, despite the Scoobies’ knowing smiles, Rose’s giggle and Jack’s quiet guffaws in the background. The Doctor was obviously happy with the idea; he’d stepped out of his police box with a cheerful grin, made some comment or other about working his passage and vanished inside the workings of the Watcher’s control console with his sonic screwdriver in hand. Dawn didn’t really care about the why. She just knew that having the Doctor aboard was good for everybody, and getting Jack and Rose along with the gift was like getting Christmas and birthdays all at once.
It was right and it was going to be fun, they weren’t running away from anything anymore, and there was a whole universe out there for them to see.
She’d always felt safe in Giles’ TARDIS.
She had a feeling the Doctor did too ...