Name: Seeing Ghosts
Characters: 1st Doctor, Steven Taylor, Katarina, Sara Kingdom and Original Characters.
Synopsis: When the Doctor and Steven are alone in the TARDIS, they find themselves encountering the ghosts of the recently deceased Katarina and Sara Kingdom. Have their former allies come back to haunt them or is something far more sinister afoot? Set after The Daleks Master Plan.

He didn't remember falling asleep but so often, the Doctor hardly had a need for it. His mind was usually too restless but inside his own room of the vessel that had been his home more than his own planet had been in the last couple of decades, the Doctor had decided to rest his eyes for a moment. It was in this moment that he succumbed to sleep.

Of course it wasn't just the Doctor who had succumbed to the lure of slumber either. Steven's mind had mulled over the events of the last while and he found himself unable to stay awake. He thought he'd rest his eyes for a moment – not too long but moments have a habit of becoming longer than that as Steven was about to find out.

"Hello Steven," a whispery voice called out, echoing softly throughout the corridors of the TARDIS.

It was the same voice that got Steven out of his bed and once he had slipped into a dressing gown and grabbed a torch, he ventured down the halls, looking for that voice that he had come to know and lose over the last while.

As he reached down one particular corridor, there stood a woman who should not have been standing there. The last time he had seen that woman, it had been her last. Now she was staring at him with vacant, hopeless eyes that chilled him to his very core.

"How is that even possible?" Steven shone his torch on the woman, reluctant to come any closer than he needed to. "Is it really you?"

"You tell me," Sara Kingdom said softly. "Do I look real to you?"

"I can't tell," Steven admitted, daring himself to move somewhat closer to the shadowy figure of his former enemy and ally. "Looks aren't everything."

"Who taught you that?" Sara smiled and it was not a kind one either as she held out her arms. "Oh, of course – he did!"

Before Steven could call out, the ghost of Sara Kingdom shrieked a high pitched wail, rendering the former astronaut to the ground in agony. As Steven tried to block his ears from the noise, he noticed that the thing that had looked like Sara was now taking on another form, one that he also knew was of someone who had recently perished.

"Now he comes," the creature smiled as it took the guise of Katarina before staring at Steven. "I knew you'd be useful as bait."

"Katarina? No, it can't be!"

Steven could hardly concentrate as the creature wailed one last time and rendered him unconscious. It turned around then to see an elderly man staring before it and with that the creature smiled in satisfaction.

"What are you doing in my ship?" The Doctor hadn't been in a dressing gown but his normal attire and looked at the creature with distrust. "You're not Katarina, are you?"

"The old man is perceptive," the creature smirked as it circled the Doctor. "I hope his perception extends to knowing when he's been beaten. It would be such a shame to resort to force. I do rather the kinder approach."

"Is that why Steven is unconscious?" The Doctor turned to see that Steven was breathing uncomfortably. The young man was alive but not in comfort. "What is it you want?"

"Your ship of course," the creature said in a more soothing voice. "If you would be so kind."

"And why should I give you my ship?" The Doctor stared at the creature with a certain look of hostility.

"If you don't you old fool, I shall take it by force," the creature replied as it bent down for a moment to check Steven's forehead, before gazing at the Doctor one more time. "Before that, I'll just kill your friend here. I can see you'd prefer if I didn't resort to that measure."

"Yes, you may be right there," the Doctor sighed in reluctance. "I suppose I have no choice, do I?"

"Not really," the creature replied, folding it's arms. "Though if you had one, then you can congratulate yourself on choosing wisely. Putting the welfare of a friend above one's own needs or desire is an admirable human trait I've been told."

"I am not human," the Doctor replied snappishly as it led the creature to the controls of the ship.

"I've no interest in learning what you are, personally," the creature smiled as it stroked the older man's face. "For now you are the driver. You will teach me how to fly this vessel, even become one with it. That is your only purpose."

"Is it now?" The Doctor began working the controls as the creature observed his every move. "And once I've taught you how to fly my ship, what will then become of myself and Steven?"

The creature didn't answer the Doctor. Instead, a small and sinister smirk came on it's face and it was one that more or less gave the Doctor the very answer he expected. He needed to eject this creature out of the TARDIS and he needed to do it fast, before it took over his ship and decided on the fates of everyone else on board.

Steven had begun to slowly awaken from his sleep. He had no idea how long he had been out for but all he knew was that he had the headache from hell and there was a dangerous shape shifting creature in the TARDIS. He had to find the Doctor and get rid of that creature. The first part wasn't going to be too hard, Steven had a fairly good guess where the elderly man and that creature probably were. It was the second part of the dilemma that worried him more.

"I want to see it," the creature hissed at the Doctor. It was still disguised as Katarina but it was beginning to sound less like her and it's eyes glowed a bright amber as well. "Where we are."

"Are you sure?" The Doctor looked at the creature suspiciously. "You might not like what you see."

"And neither will you if you don't do as I ask, Time Lord," the creature hissed again in annoyance. "I can still kill that friend of yours."

"I'd like to see you try," Steven replied, stepping into the console room with a gun in his hand, a gun which he now had pointed at the creature's chest.

"Steven!" The Doctor snapped as he looked at the young man in disapproval. "That won't work against her."

"You should listen to the old man," the creature smirked at both the Doctor and Steven. "Guns really don't have any effect on me."

"Something must do," Steven said sharply, removing the gun from her chest but still holding onto it. "You might not be physical but you're not exactly invincible either."

"She's not," the Doctor sighed with reluctance as his hand was beginning to aim for the lever. "There is something that can stop her."

"There really isn't," the creature laughed. "Especially nothing that a flighty human and some dithering old man could hope to accomplish. I have this ship and both of you. Only one of them that I no longer need. Now show me what's outside before I kill you both."

"Do you really want to see it?" the Doctor asked the creature. "You might not like it."

"Show me," the creature said. "Or do I really have to prove nothing can stop me?"

"If you insist," the Doctor sighed in resignation. He wasn't pleased with what was about to happen but at the same time, he had no choice.

The Doctor opened the doors of the TARDIS just the smallest of fractions, enough for the creature to realise that they nearing a black hole and also enough of a width that the creature found herself being pulled out by the sheer force of it, screaming that the Doctor had deceived her before the Time Lord closed the doors and teleported far away before both him and Steven were pulled into the black hole as well.

"Will that thing have stopped her, Doctor?" Steven looked at the monitor, realising that they really were far away from disaster.

"I should think so, my boy," the Doctor said, not smiling at all. "I didn't want to have resorted to that extreme but she hadn't left much choice."

"If she had gotten control of the TARDIS, we'd have been done for," Steven muttered in agreement.

"Not just us, Steven," the Doctor's voice had taken a darker, foreboding sound. "The entire universe could've been at stake. Creatures like that are rarely satisfied with a few deaths here and there."

"So, we saved the universe again," Steven replied. "Feels different. I suppose the seeing ghosts bit didn't help."

"They weren't ghosts," the Doctor called out but Steven had headed down the corridors, presumably back to his room this time.

The Doctor just stared at the console and looked at the controls. This had been an odd night in the TARDIS but he had a feeling that there were more nights like this to come. If something like that could manage to get into his ship, then the Doctor knew that he needed to be far more careful in future of what and who he allowed inside.

- The End -