Susan loved talking to the TARDIS, although she couldn't quite place her finger on the precise reason why she adored it so. Perhaps it was the way that she felt special when she spoke the TARDIS, knowing that no other soul in the history of the universe had ever been able to interact with the blue box in such a manner, with such consistency.

However, she wasn't exactly smiling when she ended up walking towards the TARDIS's projection this time around - she felt as if the tips of her lips had been forced down and would remain in such a matter for quite a while longer.

She tried to keep her posture straight, tried to keep her eyes bright, tried to turn the tips of her lips upwards. Despite all of her attempts to remain happy, she knew that the TARDIS would be able to see right through it all as if she had been the projection the whole time.

"What's the matter, Susan?" the TARDIS asked, her eyes widening as she looked over towards her child of her child squared. She couldn't help but feel a maternal instinct towards this girl, even if they appeared around the same age at this current moment in time.

"There are quite a few matters at hand," Susan replied, unsure how she should phrase all of her dilemmas. Certainly the TARDIS was already aware of what problems had risen up her life...but she was still asking as if she wasn't aware.

"Well, some of those matters are going to be the ones that make you frown so often," the TARDIS said, attempting to sound as sympathetic as possible (and succeeding all too well for Susan's sake).

Susan opened her mouth to speak, but instead of words coming out she just stood their with her jaw hanging open. How could she speak if she wasn't quite sure waht words she could force out? The TARDIS had noticed her frowning - well, of course, who could ignore it? But she didn't wish to keep frowning...frowning simply wasn't how she functioned...

"Are you going to tell me about any of these matters, or are you just going to hope that I can guess what's going on inside that head of yours?" the TARDIS asked, bursting through her thoughts.

"Why do you think that my father and grandfather hate one another?" Susan asked, finally certain of what to say. "You most likely know both of them better than I do, as unfortunate as that may be."

"I don't ever quite know how emotions like that work - but I don't think they truly hate one another. I think they just hate the circumstances floating around one another."

"What do you mean?" Susan asked, scrunching up her nose in confusion. "They both have more or less the same circumstances. They're both here."

"Exactly!" the TARDIS exclaimed, letting out a bell-like laugh. "They're both here, and that's what makes all of their problems so difficult! If they have the same problems, then they need to find the same solution. And they haven't found any solution yet."

"Obviously not."

"I'm sure they don't hate one another," the TARDIS purred. "How could they hate one another? They're practically related - the Doctor should be like a father to your father by this point."

"My whole point is that they're absolutely nothing like that," Susan said. "They're not like family. I understand that their bloodline isn't that close, but they've crossed timelines more than enough to get along better than this. And what do you mean, they both have the same problems?"

"When two people live in the same place, they're bound to share some sort of problem."

"Just because they live in the same place?" Susan asked. "I mean, I understand that...but I live in the same place as them as well, and I don't exactly have the same problems as them."

"Well, they're men. Of course you don't have the same problems."

Susan let out a sigh, although her upturned lips showed her true emotions towards the TARDIS's words. Everything that the TARDIS said made sense - it just took a while longer to decipher what it was she was trying to say before it truly made sense in the end. Nevertheless, Susan was willing to put in the effort to figure it out.

"If they have the same problems, then they should be working to find the same solution!" Susan exclaimed. "It's always the two of them going at one another's throats. How is that supposed to do anything but cause more problems?"

"I try not to make sense of what they do - mostly because there is no sense to what they do."

"Well, that's not true," Susan said, biting her lip. "There is some reason to it, I know..."

"Is there? You'll have to share it with me."

"Well...have a feeling my father is more focused on the Songs than anything else."

"A feeling? You should have more than a feeling. I think that is a solid fact, Susan!" the TARDIS exclaimed.

"You make it sound as if it's not a terrible tragedy," Susan said, shaking her head. She didn't know how the TARDIS felt about anything she was saying - it was difficult to interpret her emotions, as she was never meant to take on such a humanoid form.

"It's perhaps not a terrible tragedy," the TARDIS replied. "I knew the Songs. They were my children. They still are my children. So that's precisely why I know that he has a reason to care and why it's not a tragedy that he does care."

"But he's caused so much damage!" Susan exclaimed. "So much damage, and I hardly know anything about it all!"

"Well, what has he told you about the Songs?" asked the TARDIS.

"Whenever he speaks to me about the Songs, he tells me about how they're gone. He tells me about how they used to be and his memories of them, memories which seem to be faded in some places and covered with glitter in others. I do not know what is real and what has been augmented by his mind."

"Memories always end up betraying minds, so it seems," the TARDIS replied, a thoughtful look perched across her face. "There is just far too much sentiment involved to make it work out quite the way that people would expect."

"That is certainly true," Susan agreed. "Memories end up saturated with so many emotions and suddenly you're only remembering what you felt and not what actually happened."

"And that's what's happening with your father," the TARDIS said. "He has so much emotion and doesn't know what to do with any of it. Instead, he just keeps managing to find himself spilling it all out to you. He loves the Songs. Or, at least, he loves Brook. You can't have a Brook without a River."

"That's one way of putting it," Susan said, shaking her head. "I just wish he knew of something else that he could use to bond with me."

"He's trying his best, I know that for certain," the TARDIS replied.

"But all he's managing to do is push himself farther and farther from Grandfather...I can't say anything without feeling as if I'm choosing sides. I don't want to choose sides at all."

"You don't have to choose sides."

"Maybe I don't have to," Susan said, trying to agree with the TARDIS, "but I feel as if it's a much better idea if I do."

"Oh, why would you say that?" the TARDIS asked, tilting her head and sending her dark waves spilling over her shoulder.

"It's come to the point where I cannot talk to my blood family the way that I wish to, the way that I need to," Susan sighed. "They may be my family by birth, but sometimes I wonder if they care more about the idea of me than they actually do care about me."

"I don't see why it can't be both," the TARDIS replies. "The Doctor cares an awful lot about me, but also this idea of me."

"Yes, but I'm not a sentient projection," Susan sighed. "I am a Time Lord, same as both of them, who appears to them at all times and constantly speaks to them. I'm more than just an idea to them...or at least, that's what I hope."

"I never said you were a sentient projection, Susan," the TARDIS replied. Susan wasn't quite sure if the TARDIS understood what she was trying to say or not - it was never quite clear.

"I'm not," Susan said. "But they should love me for being me. Not because they've been seperated from me for ages on end, but because they truly care about me. Because they care about me."

The TARDIS rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, releasing a sigh as she pondered this situation. She wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to respond to Susan for the moment simply because she didn't know what to say. Nothing she could say ended up going through to Susan's inner mind.

"We have to do something," Susan said, her voice barely above a mutter. "Or, rather, I have to do something. I know we're capable of figuring this all out. I know I am. It's just that I can't exactly force my father and grandfather to look through the same lenses as I do."

"They have their own lenses," the TARDIS agreed. "They just have to find a way to adjust them to see the same thing that you do, more or less.

"Things are falling apart here, and I don't know what I can possibly do to fix it," Susan said.

"Why do you need to fix it? I don't believe you started any of these problems, now did you?"

"Well, perhaps not, but my father and grandfather are going to end up making the situation even worse if they continue down the path which they are currently on. Honestly, I don't see what they hope to achieve from their current efforts."

"You mean their current bickering?"

"That would be a much better word for it, I think," Susan said, heaving out a sigh. She wished she didn't have to speak about her father and grandfather in such a manner, but at the end of the day she was speaking true.

"Bicker, bicker, bicker," the TARDIS twittered. "Is that really all that they know how to do any more?"

"It seems that way," Susan said, heaving out a sigh. "What a shame...it shouldn't have to be that way, now should it?"

"It doesn't have to be that way. Not if you don't want it to be."

"I'm not so sure that I'm going to have much control over that, unfortunately. It's difficult enough to pull myself through this...I don't want to have to worry about my father and grandfather as well."

"You have power over them," the TARDIS said, heaving her shoulders up into a shrug. "Sometimes it might not seem so, but I can assure you that it is entirely true."

"Maybe. But I still need help to get myself through all of this," Susan sighed. "I should be able to work through it all alone, and yet here I am. It isn't quite working out for me."

"I hate to suggest such an idea, but I'm starting to think it might be the only thing that'll work out..." the TARDIS began.

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm trying to say that maybe you shouldn't stay around here for much longer. If you're not enjoying it here, then what's the point? I don't think you should stay just to suffer."

"I can't leave!" Susan exclaimed. "I can't. I can't do that. I would miss you too much, and..."

"And your father and grandfather? Of course. I would miss you most of all. But that's not quite what I want to tell you. I think that you should do what feels best to you. It's not that you'd be leaving all of this behind forever. You would just be leaving behind the search for Gallifrey and all the pain it's caused."

Susan paused for a moment. She couldn't trust herself to simply say the words that were most necessary - no, she needed to make sure that she thought through whatever words flew through her head that she didn't end up saying something foolish. This was no time for her impulses to take hold - no, this required legitimate thought.

And the TARDIS, luckily enough, was willing to wait in order to find out what legitimate thoughts ended up coming out from Susan's mind. She'd provoked these thougts to begin with and therefore had to make sure she supported them until the end.

"I can't leave," Susan said, forcing the hesitation from her words. "I cannot and will not leave. It won't be what's best for me, that much is certain. I will be staying here for quite a while longer."

"I'm sure you know what's best for you," the TARDIS said, supposedly pleased with this development. "I trust you to know."

"I'm glad that you do," Susan said. "I won't desert my father or my grandfather. Or you. I need to stay here until I am entirely certain that my time here has been completed. For all I know, that might not be until I end up finding Gallifrey once again. And we're far from finding Gallifrey, I'm certain of that."

"I wouldn't be so certain..."

"Oh, are you on a pathway to Gallifrey?" Susan asked, tilting her head.

The TARDIS wore the perfect image of mischief upon her lips. Susan knew she was holding back so much, not letting on to a thing except the fact that she was holding something.

"What are you not telling me?" Susan said, pushing forwards in hopes she would get something out of the TARDIS.

"I'm not telling you anything because I want everything that happens to be a surprise!" the TARDIS squealed. "You're not going to learn a thing from me, Susan! I am a closed book."

"Oh, come on! It's not like I'm going to confess anything to my father and grandfather - they're too busy bickering with one another to care, remember?"

"No. I won't tell you a thing."

Susan rolled her eyes, but she still wore an enormous grin acrosss her face. Speaking to the TARDIS had helped her to feel quite a bit better, exactly as she had hoped. Nevertheless, it hadn't provided whole resolution.

"Well, at least I've made up my mind about something," Susan said. "It's not going to solve many of those problems around here, but at least it does something. I'm hoping this will be able to help do something - if I know what I'm doing, then I can help to guide the others around here."

"Are you going to tell your father and grandfather that you were considering leaving after everything that's happened around here?"