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Story: Curiosity
Author: The Amazing Leda![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
leda74
Beta: Love! Slash! Angst!loveslashangst
Characters: Ten, Donna Noble, the TARDIS
Rated: G for crack!fic and recalcitrant felines
Disclaimer: We don't own anything recognizable, though the plans to involuntarily ship David back to the States are in place. All hail Pterry Pratchett for secondary concepts.
Spoilers: Zero, none, zip, nada. Just know that the Doctor isn't so much a cat person.
Summary: There's a cat on board. This is no ordinary cat, however, and things are about to get worse, because the TARDIS is feeling neglected...
Author's Note:
*blinks in the unaccustomed spotlight*
Firstly, I would like to thank my brilliant, beautiful wife for hosting me on her LJ. She wanted to show me off, and I hope I can do her justice!
Secondly, for those unfamiliar with it, here is a useful link explaining the thought experiment constructed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat
Thirdly, but by no means lastly, I would like to pay homage to the great Terry Pratchett, for suggesting the concept of the Schrödinger Cat in the first place (if you have the chance, check out his book, "The Unadulterated Cat" for a fuller explanation and a lot of laughs). Terry, I owe you more than I can say.
Anyway. That's my speech. Thank you for reading, folks!
“That's it,” said the Doctor, savagely. “She's grounded for a month.”
The Archives weren't a place that Donna normally cared to visit. She'd been badly spooked on her first visit when she'd got lost amongst the endless ranks of cupboards and shelves, and hadn't been back since. Now, however, it was looking a lot more interesting, if no less chaotic.
There was no sign of the books, papers, and other media that had previously colonised the place like a flock of mouldering bats; they had been replaced by endless rows of cat-related paraphernalia. Donna saw a wicker basket full of fluffy balls on one shelf and, beyond that, gleaming tins of Whiskas piled five high. The floor was littered with saucers of cream at which more than three dozen cats of all shapes and colours were drinking peacefully, completely oblivious to their presence.
“We need to find the point of entry,” the Doctor was saying. Donna, who had been hypnotised by the sound of synchronised lapping, dragged her attention back to reality – or, she amended mentally, whatever passed for reality in a room that was rapidly filling up with time-travelling cats.
“What?” she managed, vaguely. She watched a gorgeous silver Persian nearby finish its meal and stroll off, plumed tail swaying. gently The empty saucer, meanwhile, popped out of existence and was promptly replaced by a full one.
“There's got to be a rift in spacetime where they're getting in,” he said. “ I did warn you; it's like a cat flap. Once one finds the way in, the others won't be far behind.”
He snorted angrily and set off down a randomly chosen aisle, picking his way through the feeding animals, most of which ignored him completely.
Sploop.
“Doctor?” called Donna, although hesitantly. The noise had been very faint, and even now she was beginning to doubt she'd heard it at all. Already halfway around a distant corner, the Doctor poked his head back into the aisle and frowned at her.
“What is it?”
Donna looked around wildly and tried to pinpoint the source of the noise as the Doctor sighed harshly and started to make his way back through the minefield of preoccupied cats.
Blort.
This time she had it. She reached out and grabbed the Doctor's elbow and aimed him at a nearby closet.
“There's something in there,” she hissed, and urged him forward.
The Doctor reached out gingerly, and somewhere on the fringes of realisation it occurred to Donna that they were being watched. She risked a half-turn of the head, and saw that every cat in the Archives had stopped what it was doing and was watching the Doctor as he inched forward.
Donna drew and held a deep breath. Eighty-four cats flicked an ear apiece. The Doctor turned the handle.
There was a rather fitting pause – and just enough time for the his eyes to widen in horror – before he was deluged with cats. Donna back-pedalled as the feline tsunami rolled towards her, spitting and wailing, and as she did so, she saw the Doctor's hand waving helplessly from beneath a pile of highly irritated fur.
The wave broke almost at once and the cats fled. Donna stepped away from the wall and knelt down by the semi-conscious Doctor, who was slumped against the closet door and moaning feebly. There was a black kitten curled up on his head.
“Wstfgl,” said the Doctor. Donna reached out and removed the kitten, setting it on the floor and gently shooing it away.
“I had one of those once, but the end fell off,” said Donna, trying to lighten the mood. She reached out and slapped his cheek, gently. When that failed to produce the desired response, she applied a little more force.
“Ow!”
“Sorry,” said Donna, brusquely, “but we can't sit around all day, can we? We've found out where they're getting in. What do we do now?”
The Doctor declined to answer. Instead, he struggled to his feet, made a very futile attempt to brush the cat hair off his suit and set his jaw.
“Look,” he said, and pointed at the back wall of the closet. Donna squinted into the gloom. What she had taken at first to be a random pattern in the grain of the wood was in fact far more interesting. A section of the wall was distinctly puckered, and as she watched, it pulsed briefly before opening with a soft blup and ejecting a scrawny ginger cat, which blinked myopically at her before hopping smartly off the shelf.
“That,” said Donna, eventually, “is quite possibly the most unpleasant thing I've ever seen.”
The Doctor withdrew the sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the hole, which was already quivering again. There was a startling flare of light and an unexpected, high-pitched whine, like acoustic feedback. Donna's ears ached, and she pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt to clear the sudden imbalance. When the sensation of pressure had faded, she opened her eyes and saw that the hole was sealed.
“Is that it?” she said, cautiously?
The Doctor stared at her for long seconds, as if he'd never seen her before. Then, very slowly, he turned his head and looked at half a dozen suddenly very nervous cat faces, peering at him from behind a bookshelf.
“Not yet,” he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Can you reach it?”
“No!”
Donna readjusted her grip on the base of the ladder and shoved it a few feet sideways. The wheels squeaked. At the top, the Doctor did the same and gripped a rung fervently.
“How about now?” she called up, wiping a hand across her forehead irritably.
The Doctor peered into the foetid darkness atop the shelves and pursed his lips, clucking gently. The cat half closed eyes like twin fire opals in the gloom and gave him a fairly typical cat look; namely, the one designed to convey: I'm quite happy where I am, thank you so very much indeed, and if you even think about trying to move me you're going to be taking a short course in skin grafts. To give him due credit for common sense, the Doctor hesitated for a second, and then shrugged wearily.
From her position at the bottom of the ladder, Donna couldn't see what was going on, although she managed to form a reasonable guess in the aftermath of what happened next.
There was a soft snarl, followed by an unidentifiable organic noise, and then a flurry of claws on wood. The universe held its breath, and when it exhaled the Doctor came skidding down the ladder at high speed, leaving a red smear all the way. He scowled at Donna for no good reason before smacking his maimed hand into his armpit with a slight whimper.
“Here, let me see,” said Donna firmly, and grabbed his wrist. There were four neat slashes across the palm of his hand, punctuated with bright beads of blood. She cringed. The Doctor merely snorted and retrieved his hand, cradling it awkwardly.
“Little sod,” he said, absently.
Donna glanced around and up. The cat, seemingly confident of a battle won, had not gone far; it was lounging bonelessly atop of a shelf marked 'Y:CH-ZzzT' and twisting its tail into delicate sine waves. She frowned fiercely and wheeled the ladder along the shelf towards the insolent animal. Even from that distance Donna could hear it purring, which seemed to her to be unnecessarily sarcastic.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” sighed the Doctor from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder for a second. The Doctor raised his hand long enough to remind her of his battle scars and cocked a questioning eyebrow.
“Look, I'm good with cats, okay?” said Donna firmly. “You, on the other hand, don't strike me as a cat person at all. No offence,” she added.
“None taken,” said the Doctor, in tones glazed with irony.
Mollified, Donna clambered up the ladder and raised her head cautiously over the parapet on the edge of the top shelf.
The animal was gone. In its place there was another trembling, puckered hole, almost identical to the one that had spat out the cat in the first place. Donna stretched out a hand, fingers shaking slightly, and traced the edges of the hole.
“Really, really don't do that,” said the Doctor. She paused, and drew back her hand.
“Why not?”
“Well,” said the Doctor, after a decent pause for effect, “there are several fundamental reasons, but I think the most vital is that you really don't want to be poking your hand into a hole that could lead anywhere – and I do mean anywhere.”
“So where's the cat gone?” said Donna, exasperated, stepping back down the ladder.
The Doctor merely shrugged.
“Search me,” he told her. “Only he knows. The point is that they can control the tangent of travel within these wormholes. You, however, can't, and I don't want to have to explain to your mother that you lost your hand somewhere in the Early Silurian period. Will that do?”
Donna was about to reply, when there was a startling boom that scythed out through the Archives and rang like a dropped coin through the stifling air around the shelves. Donna tried to flinch away from the sound, but it seemed to her that in defiance of conventional physics, it was coming from everywhere, down to and including her own inner ears. The entire room resonated with it. Her eyeballs ached. Her teeth set themselves on edge in sympathy. When she swallowed hard and opened her eyes again, she saw that the Doctor looked ashen.
“It's the Cloister Bell,” he said, huskily. “It only rings when there's trouble.”
“Define 'trouble',” squeaked Donna, through a rapidly closing throat.
“Try the end of the universe,” said the Doctor flatly, and then ran for it.
Link to All Chapters
Author: The Amazing Leda
leda74 Beta: Love! Slash! Angst!
loveslashangstCharacters: Ten, Donna Noble, the TARDIS
Rated: G for crack!fic and recalcitrant felines
Disclaimer: We don't own anything recognizable, though the plans to involuntarily ship David back to the States are in place. All hail Pterry Pratchett for secondary concepts.
Spoilers: Zero, none, zip, nada. Just know that the Doctor isn't so much a cat person.
Summary: There's a cat on board. This is no ordinary cat, however, and things are about to get worse, because the TARDIS is feeling neglected...
Author's Note:
*blinks in the unaccustomed spotlight*
Firstly, I would like to thank my brilliant, beautiful wife for hosting me on her LJ. She wanted to show me off, and I hope I can do her justice!
Secondly, for those unfamiliar with it, here is a useful link explaining the thought experiment constructed by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger's_cat
Thirdly, but by no means lastly, I would like to pay homage to the great Terry Pratchett, for suggesting the concept of the Schrödinger Cat in the first place (if you have the chance, check out his book, "The Unadulterated Cat" for a fuller explanation and a lot of laughs). Terry, I owe you more than I can say.
Anyway. That's my speech. Thank you for reading, folks!
“That's it,” said the Doctor, savagely. “She's grounded for a month.”
The Archives weren't a place that Donna normally cared to visit. She'd been badly spooked on her first visit when she'd got lost amongst the endless ranks of cupboards and shelves, and hadn't been back since. Now, however, it was looking a lot more interesting, if no less chaotic.
There was no sign of the books, papers, and other media that had previously colonised the place like a flock of mouldering bats; they had been replaced by endless rows of cat-related paraphernalia. Donna saw a wicker basket full of fluffy balls on one shelf and, beyond that, gleaming tins of Whiskas piled five high. The floor was littered with saucers of cream at which more than three dozen cats of all shapes and colours were drinking peacefully, completely oblivious to their presence.
“We need to find the point of entry,” the Doctor was saying. Donna, who had been hypnotised by the sound of synchronised lapping, dragged her attention back to reality – or, she amended mentally, whatever passed for reality in a room that was rapidly filling up with time-travelling cats.
“What?” she managed, vaguely. She watched a gorgeous silver Persian nearby finish its meal and stroll off, plumed tail swaying. gently The empty saucer, meanwhile, popped out of existence and was promptly replaced by a full one.
“There's got to be a rift in spacetime where they're getting in,” he said. “ I did warn you; it's like a cat flap. Once one finds the way in, the others won't be far behind.”
He snorted angrily and set off down a randomly chosen aisle, picking his way through the feeding animals, most of which ignored him completely.
Sploop.
“Doctor?” called Donna, although hesitantly. The noise had been very faint, and even now she was beginning to doubt she'd heard it at all. Already halfway around a distant corner, the Doctor poked his head back into the aisle and frowned at her.
“What is it?”
Donna looked around wildly and tried to pinpoint the source of the noise as the Doctor sighed harshly and started to make his way back through the minefield of preoccupied cats.
Blort.
This time she had it. She reached out and grabbed the Doctor's elbow and aimed him at a nearby closet.
“There's something in there,” she hissed, and urged him forward.
The Doctor reached out gingerly, and somewhere on the fringes of realisation it occurred to Donna that they were being watched. She risked a half-turn of the head, and saw that every cat in the Archives had stopped what it was doing and was watching the Doctor as he inched forward.
Donna drew and held a deep breath. Eighty-four cats flicked an ear apiece. The Doctor turned the handle.
There was a rather fitting pause – and just enough time for the his eyes to widen in horror – before he was deluged with cats. Donna back-pedalled as the feline tsunami rolled towards her, spitting and wailing, and as she did so, she saw the Doctor's hand waving helplessly from beneath a pile of highly irritated fur.
The wave broke almost at once and the cats fled. Donna stepped away from the wall and knelt down by the semi-conscious Doctor, who was slumped against the closet door and moaning feebly. There was a black kitten curled up on his head.
“Wstfgl,” said the Doctor. Donna reached out and removed the kitten, setting it on the floor and gently shooing it away.
“I had one of those once, but the end fell off,” said Donna, trying to lighten the mood. She reached out and slapped his cheek, gently. When that failed to produce the desired response, she applied a little more force.
“Ow!”
“Sorry,” said Donna, brusquely, “but we can't sit around all day, can we? We've found out where they're getting in. What do we do now?”
The Doctor declined to answer. Instead, he struggled to his feet, made a very futile attempt to brush the cat hair off his suit and set his jaw.
“Look,” he said, and pointed at the back wall of the closet. Donna squinted into the gloom. What she had taken at first to be a random pattern in the grain of the wood was in fact far more interesting. A section of the wall was distinctly puckered, and as she watched, it pulsed briefly before opening with a soft blup and ejecting a scrawny ginger cat, which blinked myopically at her before hopping smartly off the shelf.
“That,” said Donna, eventually, “is quite possibly the most unpleasant thing I've ever seen.”
The Doctor withdrew the sonic screwdriver and aimed it at the hole, which was already quivering again. There was a startling flare of light and an unexpected, high-pitched whine, like acoustic feedback. Donna's ears ached, and she pinched the bridge of her nose in an attempt to clear the sudden imbalance. When the sensation of pressure had faded, she opened her eyes and saw that the hole was sealed.
“Is that it?” she said, cautiously?
The Doctor stared at her for long seconds, as if he'd never seen her before. Then, very slowly, he turned his head and looked at half a dozen suddenly very nervous cat faces, peering at him from behind a bookshelf.
“Not yet,” he said.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Can you reach it?”
“No!”
Donna readjusted her grip on the base of the ladder and shoved it a few feet sideways. The wheels squeaked. At the top, the Doctor did the same and gripped a rung fervently.
“How about now?” she called up, wiping a hand across her forehead irritably.
The Doctor peered into the foetid darkness atop the shelves and pursed his lips, clucking gently. The cat half closed eyes like twin fire opals in the gloom and gave him a fairly typical cat look; namely, the one designed to convey: I'm quite happy where I am, thank you so very much indeed, and if you even think about trying to move me you're going to be taking a short course in skin grafts. To give him due credit for common sense, the Doctor hesitated for a second, and then shrugged wearily.
From her position at the bottom of the ladder, Donna couldn't see what was going on, although she managed to form a reasonable guess in the aftermath of what happened next.
There was a soft snarl, followed by an unidentifiable organic noise, and then a flurry of claws on wood. The universe held its breath, and when it exhaled the Doctor came skidding down the ladder at high speed, leaving a red smear all the way. He scowled at Donna for no good reason before smacking his maimed hand into his armpit with a slight whimper.
“Here, let me see,” said Donna firmly, and grabbed his wrist. There were four neat slashes across the palm of his hand, punctuated with bright beads of blood. She cringed. The Doctor merely snorted and retrieved his hand, cradling it awkwardly.
“Little sod,” he said, absently.
Donna glanced around and up. The cat, seemingly confident of a battle won, had not gone far; it was lounging bonelessly atop of a shelf marked 'Y:CH-ZzzT' and twisting its tail into delicate sine waves. She frowned fiercely and wheeled the ladder along the shelf towards the insolent animal. Even from that distance Donna could hear it purring, which seemed to her to be unnecessarily sarcastic.
“I wouldn't do that if I were you,” sighed the Doctor from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder for a second. The Doctor raised his hand long enough to remind her of his battle scars and cocked a questioning eyebrow.
“Look, I'm good with cats, okay?” said Donna firmly. “You, on the other hand, don't strike me as a cat person at all. No offence,” she added.
“None taken,” said the Doctor, in tones glazed with irony.
Mollified, Donna clambered up the ladder and raised her head cautiously over the parapet on the edge of the top shelf.
The animal was gone. In its place there was another trembling, puckered hole, almost identical to the one that had spat out the cat in the first place. Donna stretched out a hand, fingers shaking slightly, and traced the edges of the hole.
“Really, really don't do that,” said the Doctor. She paused, and drew back her hand.
“Why not?”
“Well,” said the Doctor, after a decent pause for effect, “there are several fundamental reasons, but I think the most vital is that you really don't want to be poking your hand into a hole that could lead anywhere – and I do mean anywhere.”
“So where's the cat gone?” said Donna, exasperated, stepping back down the ladder.
The Doctor merely shrugged.
“Search me,” he told her. “Only he knows. The point is that they can control the tangent of travel within these wormholes. You, however, can't, and I don't want to have to explain to your mother that you lost your hand somewhere in the Early Silurian period. Will that do?”
Donna was about to reply, when there was a startling boom that scythed out through the Archives and rang like a dropped coin through the stifling air around the shelves. Donna tried to flinch away from the sound, but it seemed to her that in defiance of conventional physics, it was coming from everywhere, down to and including her own inner ears. The entire room resonated with it. Her eyeballs ached. Her teeth set themselves on edge in sympathy. When she swallowed hard and opened her eyes again, she saw that the Doctor looked ashen.
“It's the Cloister Bell,” he said, huskily. “It only rings when there's trouble.”
“Define 'trouble',” squeaked Donna, through a rapidly closing throat.
“Try the end of the universe,” said the Doctor flatly, and then ran for it.
Link to All Chapters
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