DOCTOR WHO
THE ROOMS THAT REMEMBER
Part One: Someone Knocking
Someone was knocking inside the TARDIS.
The Doctor stopped what he was doing and remained crouched beneath the central console, one hand buried in a nest of wires and crystalline components while a small torch was clenched between his teeth. He listened, but there was nothing. After several seconds, he removed the torch from his mouth, frowned, and returned to his work. The TARDIS hummed around him with the comfortable familiarity of an old house at night. The central column rose and fell steadily, lights flickered across the console, and somewhere deep within the ship, machinery shifted and groaned. Everything sounded perfectly normal. Almost.
The Doctor frowned at the component in his hand.
“You shouldn’t be doing that.” A tiny spark answered him. “You’re becoming temperamental.”
The lights dimmed, and the Doctor looked up. “I didn’t mean it.” When the lights brightened again, he smiled. “That’s better.” He ducked beneath the console.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The Doctor struck his head on the underside of the console.
“Ow!” He scrambled backwards and stood, rubbing his hair. This time there was no question about it. Three knocks, slow and deliberate, came from somewhere inside the TARDIS. He stared towards the interior door.
“That isn’t funny.” The TARDIS continued humming as though nothing unusual had happened. The Doctor waited, but the knocking did not return. “Very well.”
He picked up his coat from the console and pulled it on. After checking that the celery was still firmly attached to his lapel, he crossed the console room and opened the interior door. Beyond lay one of the TARDIS’s seemingly endless corridors. White walls, roundels and soft light. Empty.
“Hello?” His voice travelled away from him, but there was no reply. He glanced back at the console room. “This is ridiculous.”
The Doctor walked on. He knew these corridors, perhaps not every inch of them, because that would have been impossible even for him. The internal dimensions of the TARDIS had changed countless times. Rooms had been created, moved, abandoned, and occasionally lost altogether. There were sections of the ship he hadn’t visited in centuries, but this particular corridor was familiar. Twenty-seven paces to the junction. Left led towards the secondary control room. Right eventually reached the living quarters.
He counted without consciously intending to. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. He stopped. The junction wasn’t there. The corridor continued ahead.
“Interesting.” He looked behind him, then forward again. Another six paces brought nothing. Another ten produced the same result. The Doctor turned and retraced his steps. Twenty-seven paces later he should have reached the console room. Instead, he found another stretch of corridor.
His expression changed, although only slightly.
“Now then.” He placed his palm against the wall. The TARDIS was alive beneath his fingers. He could feel the faint vibration of her systems and the familiar distant throb of the engines. Everything felt normal, yet the corridor was wrong. He closed his eyes.
“TARDIS? If you’re trying to tell me something, there are considerably easier ways.” The hum continued. Nothing more.
When the Doctor opened his eyes, a door stood at the end of the corridor. He stared at it. He was certain it hadn’t been there before. It was an ordinary TARDIS door, white and rectangular with a recessed handle. There was no label. He approached slowly and was about to touch the handle when he noticed something on the floor.
A cricket ball.
Red and scuffed.
The Doctor bent and picked it up, turning it slowly between his fingers.
“Well,” he knew this ball. Or at least he thought he did. He had bowled it down a corridor once while attempting to explain something to Nyssa. Tegan had complained when it narrowly missed her head. Adric had caught it.
The doctor's smile faded. Adric. He looked at the door.
“No.” He dropped the ball. It bounced once, then twice, before rolling towards the door. The Doctor stepped backwards. “Absolutely not.”
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sound came from the other side. His face went still.
“Who’s there?” Silence. The Doctor waited. “Adric?” He regretted saying the name immediately. Nothing answered.
He reached for the handle.
The door opened before he touched it.
Beyond was a small, untidy bedroom. Books were scattered across a desk, and mathematical notes covered sheets of paper. A half-finished calculation had been written on a board beside the bed. The Doctor didn’t move. He recognised the room.
“No.”
Adric’s room.
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