Chapter Thirteen: Assessing the Damage

Mechanical components lay strewn everywhere in the aftermath of the detonation. In the time it took for Caan to get his grubby little protuberances on the flux capacitor and install it, Lisa, Doc, the Doctor and Martha got a hold of a small explosive and clock. They rigged them together, using the clock as the detonation timer, and turned Caan’s Time Corridor into scrap.

The question was, just how badly did the flux capacitor fare?

Doc and Lisa searched the machinery for the flux capacitor while the Doctor and Martha started gathering the other parts of the Time Corridor. They didn’t need to leave that kind of technology behind for anyone to use.

“Found it!” Lisa said after a moment.

The metal box that housed the whole apparatus was dented and burnt, the glass view panel shattered and the lamps that formed the “Y” were shorted out and melted. Frankly, it could have been worse. They were lucky it hadn’t welded itself to the outside circuits.

“Great Scott,” Doc commented. “That’s a mess. It might be better to just rebuild it…”

“And we haven’t even looked at the De’, yet,” added Lisa.

Together, the four of them salvaged what they could of both the Time Corridor and the flux capacitor and headed back to the TARDIS, parked on a mound of trash. A quick pilot later and the group was back in Doc’s lab, examining the damage done to the DeLorean, though the Doctor was spending a few minutes with Lisa’s double, checking on her.

The DeLorean’s circuitry that connected Mr. Fusion to the flux capacitor was completely ripped out, all the wiring disconnected and frayed. This, coupled with the damage to the flux capacitor itself, was going to take a while to repair.

The Doctor finally exited the TARDIS, looking a little unhappy.

“Well?” asked Lisa.

“She’s healing…but she’s still unconscious.”

Lisa nodded. “She will be. Like I said, it’ll probably take a day or two.” She suddenly looked a little sad. “Though, uh…I guess the sooner you guys leave, the less chance of her waking up here and messing up my timeline.”

While she had a point, the Doctor couldn’t just up and leave with so much damage done to the other time machine. Since he would sense when Lisa’s double regained consciousness, he decided to stick around and help Doc begin the repairs to the DeLorean until she woke up. While the flux capacitor would warrant several trips to the future for the technology, they could at least start with the wiring inside the car.

Now that the danger of the Time Corridor had passed, Martha took the opportunity to ask some questions that were on her mind while she helped cut wires.

“Do you think we’ll see Caan again?” she began with.

“Not a doubt in my mind,” was the Doctor’s frank answer. He glanced at Lisa out of the corner of his eye, but she shook her head. No, she wasn’t going to give anything about the future away. While having forewarning of the upcoming events probably would be a good thing, it might have a negative impact on what, to Lisa, was already in the past.

“And, Lisa…you’re from our future?”

Of course, that was one question she didn’t want to answer, but she did.

“Yes. But don’t ask me what’s going to happen. Both Doc and the Doctor would kill me if I said anything.” She smiled a little, but she wasn’t completely joking. She knew Martha also wanted to ask why she wasn’t with the Doctor anymore, but hopefully the look she shot her would make her get the picture.

It did, apparently. She fell silent and they worked quietly for a few minutes, the only sound the buzzing of the Doctor’s sonic screwdriver.

Try as she might, she couldn’t help casting sidelong glances at the Doctor. It had been so long since she’d seen him. A part of her wished she could travel with him again, but that was best left to her other self. He was going to need her in the coming adventures.

While working, the Time Lord’s eyes fell on the computer program Doc and Lisa had been working on before the whole mess started. Curiosity piqued, he went over to the computer and put on a pair of thick-rimmed black glasses, peering at the screen.

“This looks like a holographic imaging generator,” he said.

“It is.” Doc replied. “I picked it up in the future. It’s to disguise the DeLorean and the train when we travel to different times.”

The Doctor blinked. “Train?”

Lisa smiled to herself at the childlike look that crossed the Doctor’s face. She remembered that he’d told her he’d always wanted to drive a train as a boy.

Show him, she urged Doc.

He shrugged. “Well, why not?” The scientist led him down to the lower areas of the lab, where a tunnel had been cut into the mountain below for the storage of the time train.

The minute the Doctor saw the train, he started running around it like a kid at Christmas, making comments like “Oh, this is beautiful!” and “It runs on steam! Steam! Brilliant!”

Lisa had to giggle. “Want to know the kicker, Doctor?” He turned to her, curious. “He built it in the 1880s.”

The Doctor’s eyes could have fallen out of his head with how large he widened them. Lisa went over to the train and activated the switch to open the door, lowering the staircase. The Doctor’s eyebrows got lost in his hairline, causing her to giggle even more. He dashed inside and began examining the controls. While Doc had kept a lot of the 1880s components – a typewriter in lieu of a computer pad for programming the time circuits, for example – most of the system was, now, incorporating circuitry from the future.

Even Martha was impressed, though the Doctor was making so much of a fuss, she couldn’t get a word in edgewise, especially when he seized the cord for the whistle and pulled it a couple of times. The sound echoed through the mountain and Doc, at a look from Lisa, just let the Time Lord have his moment.

“As you can see,” said Doc, “traveling to different times in something as big and bulky as this and hiding it is difficult. That’s why I acquired the holographic generator. Even the DeLorean. I do wish we could, somehow, incorporate a system like your TARDIS, though.”

“Bigger on the inside?” asked Martha.

Doc and Lisa nodded simultaneously. “We had this misadventure last year,” Lisa said. “And one thing that made it so uncomfortable is that the De’ can only seat two. Three uncomfortably.” She didn’t mention the dimension-hopping they’d done.

Watching the Doctor, Lisa could almost see the gears turning in his head, just like old times. Did he have an idea?

His face suddenly split into a wide grin, one Lisa had seen on him many, many times before. He raced back upstairs with the other three trailing behind him. They emerged just in time to see him disappear into the TARDIS.

“What’s he up to?” Martha asked.

Lisa had to shrug. “I’ve no idea.”

A few minutes later, he came out with wires in his mouth and a large box of circuits in his hands, buzzing the sonic screwdriver at it.

“What’re you doing?” Lisa asked.

“I don’t normally do this sort of thing,” the Doctor said, still prodding the thing with the sonic screwdriver. “But you’re a friend of Lisa’s…so, I’ll do this once. Once only.” He held up one finger for emphasis.

“Do what?” asked Doc, glancing at Lisa, who shrugged again. As she was no longer linked to him, she was at a loss as to what his plan was. She knew it had to be something great, however. The Doctor was just that good.

He got into the DeLorean and blocked their view as he worked, the sonic screwdriver buzzing endlessly. After about five minutes, he grinned and shut the door to the car. From within, the muffled buzzing of the sonic screwdriver sounded again. Another five minutes passed before the Doctor finally got out of the car. From where they were standing, everything looked normal.

“Funny thing about DeLoreans,” he said, now devoid of the mechanical part he’d had in his hands and placing the sonic screwdriver in his pocket. “Ol’ John designed them to fit someone of his stature – six-foot-four – and a pull-handle for the shorter people, but they were never designed to hold more than two people comfortably.” He was grinning from ear to ear and gestured for Lisa and Doc to come closer.

“Doctor,” Lisa said suspiciously, “what did you do?”

His smile got wider. “Take a look.” And he lifted the gull-wing door, allowing Lisa, Doc and Martha to peer inside.

“Great Scott!” was Doc’s reaction.

They didn’t know how, but the interior of the car seemed to extend just a bit further into the back. With a little rearranging of the time travel components, which all had to be repaired and replaced anyway, two more seats could easily fit behind the driver and passenger seats with, perhaps, a little storage space to spare.

“Doctor, how?” Lisa asked, in awe. “You made the DeLorean dimensionally transcendental!”

“Oh, Lisa, you should know this by now.” He put a hand on her shoulder, smiling fondly down at her. “I’m brilliant!”

He never did explain how he did it. Lisa could only guess that it was one of the spare parts the Doctor liked to collect. The next thing he did was take the sonic screwdriver to the holographic generator.

“Is there anything that thing can’t do?” Doc asked Lisa quietly.

“Open deadlock seals,” she replied without missing a beat.

The Doctor worked on the program while Doc, Martha and Lisa continued on the DeLorean. Lisa and Doc were fast making plans to get two more seats to install in the back.

Work was cut short, however, when the Doctor suddenly stiffened. “She’s going to wake up soon,” he announced. “Her pulses just got stronger.”

Damn, thought Lisa, disappointed. She was rather enjoying working with him again. She knew that her timeline was in jeopardy if they pushed it too long, though. “Doctor, thank you,” she said.

“Yes,” said Doc, shaking both his and Martha’s hands. “Thank you for all your help.”

“No problem,” said Martha.

Lisa didn’t even try to hold herself back. She hugged Martha and the Doctor, though her embrace lingered on the Time Lord for as long as she could possibly hold it, and he held her just as tightly as she had him.

I’ve missed you, she said telepathically, opening up their old communication one last time, trying to hold back tears. I’ve never forgotten you and I never will. I’ll always love you. You take care of her…she has to become me.

I will, he promised.

Very, very unwilling to let him go, Doc had to take her gently by the shoulders and pull her away.

“Thank you again,” he said.

The Doctor nodded. “You take care of her,” he said, echoing Lisa’s own statement.

“I will,” said Doc, echoing the Doctor’s.

The Doctor and Martha waved goodbye and left in the TARDIS. The machine’s familiar wheezing, groaning sound filled the air and she disappeared.

Doc held Lisa while she cried, though something caught his attention. “Lisa, what’s in your pocket?” he asked.

Sniffling, she reached into her jacket. And pulled out the sonic screwdriver. He’d slipped it in while they’d hugged. Smiling sympathetically, Doc held her tight and let her cry.

End chapter thirteen.

Back *~*~* Chapter Twelve *~*~* Chapter Fourteen