A green glow illuminated the various arcing beams and cables that stretched across the TARDIS interior, and the quiet hiss of ancient engines resounded throughout the circular chamber. The vibrations ran throughout the room, rattling loose connections and shaking the trainers of a lone, tall man hunched over the many lights, levers and buttons that were spread across a brightly lit center console. As the machine flew, he pivoted around the various panels, making adjustments to the flight path and speed with pinpoint accuracy, muttering himself through the steps as he did.
“Just a slight nudge to starboard, keep siphoning power for the dispenser, screwdriver repairs are going to take ages...turbulence around the next bend...stabilizers are being wonky again, lovely...”
Even with his subtle babbling, the Doctor was uncharacteristically subdued, and even with the constant pulsing screech of the TARDIS rotors, the silence in the room was deafening. As he reached out and threw two switches, the time machine gave an upward lurch, hurtling around another bend, a concentrated arc of time energy just barely missing the blue police box. These events hardly registered, as the Doctor's eyes unfocused again, not seeing the dials and readouts that lay before him. Memories and tragedies played out inside his head, many centered around a certain blonde who was no longer with him, filling every space of his being, the past blinding him to the present. Oh, how he wished he had someone to talk to.
A quiet beeping yanked him to the dimly lit room as he squinted down at the panels. As soon as he had noticed what was going on, three other alarms had meshed together, screaming a warning the wayward Time Lord had not heard in a very long time.
Something else was in the time-stream with him.
There was barely long enough to notice a seemingly equine shape on the external scanners, the blurry cyan mass sporting wings spread wide, and all four legs relaxed, before a titanic impact hit the TARDIS, knocking the Doctor clear off the central platform. Metal shrieked in protest as the Time Lord landed flat on his back, his head slamming into one of the metal posts. Air exploded from his chest and pain blazed through his head as the time machine pitched out of control, spinning through the blurry walls of the time-stream.
The Doctor vaguely registered the various wailing alarms and constantly shaking floor, his head still spinning from its collision with the pillar. He tried unsteadily to get to his feet, but was knocked back to his knees again by another quaking tremor. Acting on instinct, he reached a shaking hand up to the console and unceremoniously yanked the space-time throttle back down to its resting position, and the time forwards/backwards controls into neutral.
An ear splitting metallic screech echoed throughout the chamber as the engines sputtered in protest. A second trembling hand activated the harmonic generator, and reengaged the materialization lever. The TARDIS bounced around several more times and with an earsplitting crash, the shuddering time machine finally came to a halt. The Time Lord's entire body relaxed as he was thrown to the floor for the last time, the last remnants of thought slipping from his mind as his eyes fluttered shut.