thoughtformed | (each feather, it fell from skin) CLOSED

Who: Ukraine, the Eleventh Doctor.
What: just checking -- surely a Time Lord can't be affected by a time-perception warp, right?
Where: wherever the TARDIS is parked
When: rIGHT NOW, or rather, today, mid-morning.

Wandering around downtown in a thoughtful sort of daze, Ukraine considers how she'd thought for a while that she'd found a sort of stability in New Moore. Sure, it was unpredictable in dangerous and perplexing ways, but she had people she cared about to look after, and honestly, it wasn't like she couldn't use the rest. She realizes she had been, in an unorthodox sort of way, comfortable.

Except a better word for it would have been complacent, or blind. Now it's all poised to collapse like a house of cards, and she's berating herself for shutting her eyes and pretending it could possibly be different just because they're not at home. What a fool she'd been! it's not as if she hasn't seen the perception warp happen.

Of course, she doesn't blame Poland. She couldn't blame him for it any more than she could cut off a limb, neither of them had considered worrying about it -- but other than keeping quiet and avoiding Tim, he doesn't seem to have much of a plan, and Tim doesn't seem as if he's likely to comply with his side of that. The simple fact that Tim is so determined to figure out what's wrong makes Ukraine think Poland might be underestimating how much Tim might be trusted -- but it's still a risk Ukraine isn't willing to take any more than Poland.

Either way, someone has to make sure everything will be okay, and it's a responsibility Ukraine is more than familiar with.

At the unexpected sound of a knock, Ukraine blinks herself out of her thoughts, only to see her own fist raised before a scuffed blue door. Oh. Well, she'd intended to speak to him anyway, though perhaps not without some preparation, with some time to consider what she could possibly say, how on earth she could talk about this without actually talking about it --

Having absolutely no time at all, Ukraine blurts out as soon as the door creaks open, "Oh, um! Are you -- How's your head feeling? Do you know what day it is? Er, I mean."

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The Doctor is below the main console, changing a couple of the blue thermocouplings that had shorted out, when he hears the knock on the door. Not expecting anyone, he is a little surprised, but he bounds to the door regardless. Throwing it open with a wide smile, he finds... the nation of Ukraine, babbling. About his head. And what day it was.

Well, this was new. "Ukraine! Why don't you come in. My head is fine, and today is the 15th of October.

...Why do you ask?"

Edited 2013-10-15 08:17 (UTC)

"Absolutely no reason whatsoever," Ukraine says firmly, and immediately reverts back to her fluttering hesitance even as she steps inside. "I mean, well. With how weird everything gets here sometimes, I think it might be a good idea to check that kind of thing every once in a while, right? Make sure we're all on the same page? You never know who could be running around thinking it's two Tuesdays ago or something!"

Which is hitting uncomfortably close to the truth again, actually. Change tack! She gives a brief greeting touch to the inside of the door, and when she looks back at the Doctor, she finally actually notices his tools. "Oh," she says, "are you -- I'm sorry, am I interrupting something? Only I didn't really mean to show up without asking first, I just sort of got distracted. I can go!"

He peers at her curiously. "Of course...

Well, you should know that even if that's happening to people, I should be fine. Timelords are not really susceptible to that kind of thing." He steps back and ushers her into the TARDIS. "Not at all, come on in!"

Ukraine can't quite restrain the little sigh of relief at that. "Oh, that's true, isn't it, I should have thought of that." Of course a Time Lord would probably have a perfectly sturdy grasp on the passage of time. How silly of her. "Well, you know, you can never be too careful around here. Just keep an eye on that calendar, okay? Or, however Time Lords keep... track of..."

She trails off, frowning minutely at the work around the main console. "Oh dear. Did something break?"

That... was an oddly relieved sigh, for an unimportant topic of conversation that she wandered all the way out here to say, wasn't it? Hmm. "No need for a calendar - a timelord can sense the passage of time more accurately than any clock. Only reason I carry a watch is that it tells me when I am when I time travel! Which... I suppose isn't really an issue here.

What?" He looks behind him for a moment, confused at first. "Oh, all this! Just a bit of routine maintenance. Changing the thermocouplings. Anyway, it's not like I've got anything better to do, at the moment.

Would you like to sit down somewhere - the reception hall, or the library? Or we could visit the kitchens if you'd like something to drink!"

"That makes sense," she says, momentarily considering her own connection -- not to time, precisely, but space. A space. She knows if something drastic had been altered, even if she doesn't necessarily know precise details -- she imagines it's probably something like that. One less thing to worry about! Although if something did happen to him, it might be suitably dramatic and disasterous. Ah... well...

"Not if the TARDIS can't wait," she demurs by default, "I wouldn't want to keep you from her."

"Don't worry about it, she'll be fine! It's just the thermocouplings, nothing dangerous, at least since we're not in flight.

It's not as if we'll need to go somewhere in a hurry - for that, there would have to be somewhere to go!"

Best make sure those thermocouplings are never left unattended after this, then, Ukraine thinks. "If it's nothing dangerous, then tea sounds really lovely right now. Goodness, she can still move around the island though, right?" she asks, satisfied with her level of nonchalance.

"Of course! The kitchens are down this way, then! Or they were last I checked, she does love switching them on me, occasionally." He starts moving down one of the corridors, past the swimming pool and a couple bedrooms. She was hiding something, but it would be better to ask after that in someplace more comfortable. "Of course she can! I just have to be careful if I'm changing them and she's in flight - last time that happened, Rory dropped one of the couplings, and she materialized inside herself! Trapped us, for a time."

"I'll keep my hands to myself," Ukraine says, smiling, looking fractionally more relaxed as she follows the Doctor through the TARDIS. "Still, there's worse places to be trapped than in here, right?"

"Yeah, but if I hadn't managed a controlled temporal implosion, we would have been trapped in here for all eternity. The TARDIS would have basically become a separate universe, completely separate from the other one!

Don't worry, though, there's no danger of that when we're not in flight." He leads her casually through the corridors, casually stepping into the open air and drifting upward when the reached what appeared to be a vertical corridor.

There's a moment in between observation and reaction where Ukraine emits a shriek like a train whistle, then immediately reaches out and snatches the Doctor by the hem of his jacket to anchor him. "Watch out!" she gasps, horror-struck. Is something broken!?

He looks down, startled by her reaction. "It's all right - it's just the corridor anti-grav. Push off and float upward, it's perfectly safe. The kitchens are on the second level, we just need to go up a bit."

"Oh," Ukraine says dumbly, feeling foolish, and then "oh," again, a little faintly, and she lets go of the Doctor, her hand fluttering uselessly before she drops it to her side. "I'm sorry," she says, both to the Doctor for panicking and to the TARDIS for not trusting her. "I have to admit, I'd have probably looked for stairs..."

She peers up through the corridor, still a little hesitant, then follows the Doctor's instructions, squeaking slightly as she lifts off. Then after a moment -- "Actually, that's kind of fun...!"

"Well, there is a ladder at the side, but where's the fun in that?!" He points to the side of the corridor, where there is indeed a ladder. Then he grins. "I'm glad you like it!"

He makes his way up to the next horizontal corridor, where he expertly snags a handhold and, seemingly without thinking about it, pushes off the wall at just the right speed and angle to land perfectly through the corridor, his feet making a sharp 'clack' with the floor as gravity reasserts its hold on him. "Kitchen's just through here!"

With significantly less grace, Ukraine manages to follow the Doctor without getting left too far behind or tripping embarrassingly. "She does make you work for your supper," she comments with a small smile.

(each feather, it fell from skin) CLOSED

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