Disclaimer: I don't own anything Doctor Who

The Doctor had been having a wonderful time, a really quite lovely day, before the ringing started.

He had decided to take Amy and Rory to Zeta Madrigal Dash Aquamarine – Nine, a charming little floating obelisk in the middle of the Eagle Nebula. They had just come around the corner of one little street in the underground marketplace they'd been exploring when they heard it.

"Doctor, do you hear that?" Amy asked curiously, peering around a fruit vendors stall.

"Ah, Singing Squashies!" The Doctor exclaimed delightedly, and picked up a round lavender-colored fruit the size of a ping pong ball and gave it a sniff. It was emitting a quiet tingling sound, like bells that were trying to talk.

"Singing Squashies?" Rory asked skeptically.

"Yup!" said The Doctor, swinging around, showing the small fruit to him, "Singing fruit! Not actually singing, of course, but filled with little tiny seeds that bounce around inside it when it gets hot. And tastes like the ocean! Earth oceans, of course, not the ones around here, they all taste like strawberries. Yuck." The Doctor pulled a face and stuck his tongue out.

"What's wrong with strawberries?" Rory asked.

"Rory, Rory, Rory," The Doctor said, shaking his head and tossing the singing squashy back on the basket where he'd gotten it from, where the vendor, a bug-eyed humanoid, bubbled at them and tugged the basket closer. "Everything's wrong with strawberries."

"Let me guess, you just don't like them."

"Doctor, it's not that, I hear something else." Amy said from a few paces forward, looking all around.

"What?" The Doctor asked, coming up from behind. He leaped casually over an overturned bin and stood very still, listening. "Yeah… I hear it too." He looked confused.

"It sounds like a phone," The Doctor said, holding up a finger, "Except Zeta Madrigal Dash Aquamarine – Nine doesn't have phones."

"Well, it's not me," Rory offered, checking his cell phone that The Doctor had set up to receive signal all across the universe.

"No, it isn't, it's coming from up ahead," The Doctor said quietly, staring down the path. "Funny 'cause that's right near where I parked the…" He stopped, eyes growing wide. "Oh no." he said very quietly "Oh no no no no!" He took off at a run and the Ponds came tearing after him.

"Doctor, wait!" Amy cried, running down the hallway.

"What is it? What's that noise?" Rory asked, as they found the Doctor outside the TARDIS doors, clearly agitated.

"Oh no, tell me that's not you, old girl, is it?" he muttered nervously, putting an ear up against the blue door. "It is!" he said, before pushing open the door and rushing back inside to the controls.

"Feel like explainin' what's going on yet?" Amy asked as she and Rory followed him inside. The Doctor took a moment to answer, still fiddling with switches and buttons in distress. The ringing was much louder now, a deafening alarm in the cavernous control room.

"It's – ah!" the Doctor yelped, as he nudged the wrong lever and a horn sounded. He fixed it, and then leaned, much more cautiously now, against the console. He continued, wearily, "It's the TARDIS's alarm system, sort of a, ah- distress signal." He continued darting about, making tiny adjustments to a million different dials and switches. He finally found the right one and the sound died away. It echoed as it went, ghostly through the long, empty halls of the TARDIS. Rory shivered.

"She's still overheating," the Doctor said. "I just turned the alarm off."

"But you can fix it," Amy said suddenly, in a tone of complete confidence, "If somethin's wrong with the TARDIS…you can fix it. You always do."

But even as the words left her mouth, Amy knew that they were wrong. She could feel it, as she suspected Rory and the Doctor could as well. Something was different this time. This was only confirmed when the Doctor did not answer her, and did not meet her gaze.

The Doctor rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands. "There's a room," he said, "Somewhere onboard there's a room full of stuff to help me fix the TARDIS. If I can get there, there should be some Arcturan cooling solvent, it'll slow the engine speed, and draw heat away from the controls."

"Oh." Rory said, sounding very surprised, "So that's good then?"

"Yeah, if I can get there," the Doctor said, "and that's a mighty big if. Who knows where that room has got to now, I haven't seen it in a couple of centuries, and with the TARDIS in the state she's in…" he trailed off. He put a hand each on Amy and Rory's shoulders.

"Okay, listen. This is the part where I tell you not to follow me. And I know I often say that, but this time, I really mean it. It's very, very dangerous to go wandering about in a faulty TARDIS. Got it?" The Doctor asked, looking very seriously at both of them. Rory and Amy nodded.

"Good." He stood up straight, looking satisfied, and headed out of the control room.

His two companions stood there. Amy looked at Rory. Rory glanced at Amy. And without another word, they both simultaneously followed the Doctor out of the control room, and into the depths of the TARDIS.

So did you think this was going to be an alien-planet adventure? Nope! There's going to be lots of in-the-TARDIS shenanigans to come. Hope you enjoyed it. The next chapter will be up soon. Please review, this is only my second fic ever and first Doctor Who one! (I don't know if anyone is a fan of the Leviathan series here, but I recently posted my first fic there, called A World That's Celebrating. It's under a different account but I'm the same person.)