The sounds of the TARDIS never tired the Doctor. He could listen to it forever. He hummed with her and stroke a soothing hand over the console before reaching over and flipping down a lever. The TARDIS had landed and the Doctor walked over to open the door. He picked up his jacket on the way, slipping his arm through one of sleeves.
"Come along P-.."
He stopped midsentence and stopped by the door. Right. No Ponds. Just me, he thought gloomily. He slipped his other arm through the jacket while walking out and closing the door carefully behind him.
As the Doctor stepped outside he took a deep breath. It was definitely the Earth, 21th century. He could smell gasoline, grass and there was a faint fragrance of mint as well, for some reason. The Doctor looked around. He was standing in a small, dark and dirty ally.
The TARDIS was parked behind him, blocking the way. Her bright blue colour was in a sharp contrast to his current surroundings. He looked at the walls and chuckled in amusement at the graffiti. Humans, with their odd habit of writing messages where no one would see them.
In front of him was a street, though it seemed quite… quiet.
Odd, the Doctor thought as he strolled out on the streets, looking around. Nothing special. No people screaming, aliens invading or anything else that normally happened with the Doctor around. He sniffed the air again. Yes, quite normal.
He looked up at squinted at the sky. The sun had gone down, but there was still light, and the temperature wasn't too low, so the Doctor sat the time to be around 8:31 PM, late summertime. Even stranger, than no chaos, was that there wasn't anybody on the street. At all. No dogs, nor children playing or anything.
The Timelord shrugged and continued down the calm streets until a certain sign caught his eye, the black letter's spelling out:
"Blackheath hospital," he mumbled. Why would the TARDIS bring him here? He looked at the building. A large, cream-ish coloured house, probably four stores, a minor part attached, probably where the front hall was situated.
"Right," he said to himself. "It's a hospital. As long as there aren't any cats running it, it should be safe."
The Doctor chuckled at his own joke and walked up the parking lane, towards the entrance.
Inside there was a small, white room with chairs up by the wall on the left, accompanied by coffee tables with magazines and a reception to the right. A girl was standing behind the desk, looking up from her shirt. She had short hair, to just above the shoulders, only a one or half an inch smaller than the Doctor. She appeared to be adjusting something on it. Hearing the doors open and close, she looked up and saw the Doctor. Her brown eyes widened and she gazed at him from his shoes to his abnormal hair and his crooked grin.
"Eh, yeah, what can I do for you?" she asked nervously. But the Doctor didn't take notice of her anxious expression.
"Could you please tell me where I am?" he asked, smiling friendly. He walked to the desk and placed his hands with a slap on it. Putting his weight on his hands, he leaning up against it and tipped slightly forward to skim over the counter.
"Sorry, wha'?" the girl replied leaning away from the Doctor.
"Where am I?" the Doctor repeated calmly. After giving the behinds of the counter a good one over, he leaned back again. The girl looked something between surprised and confused and on the verge of smiling, because what kind of a question was that.
"Blackheath hospital," she said. When he didn't react, she continued. "Greenwich. London. On Earth… the Solar System. Ring any bells?" she answered with a slightly sarcastic tone.
"Yes, it does. In fact, I've been on Earth a couple of times," he said with a secret smile. He turned to look around in the hall, noticing again that it was completely empty. The girl just looked more confused.
"No kiddin'. Eh, you okay? A bit too much to drink?"
"I'm perfectly fine, thank you," The Doctor replied, taking notice of the stairs and the elevator.
"Who exactly are ya?" the girl asked following his line of view. The Doctor snapped his head to look at her.
"I'm the Doctor," he said earnestly.
"Doctor who?" she asked, getting curious.
"Just the Doctor."
"You don't have a name?" she continued.
Boy, does she ask a lot of questions, the Doctor thought.
"I'm looking for..." he started, but trailed off.
"Actually, I'm not entirely sure what I'm looking for. Any strange patients lately, miss ..." He glanced at her tag. "Miss Kelly?"
At first she looked annoyed, probably because he ignored her question, but then she looked confused.
"What? Oh yeah, eh, lemme think. There's this one guy that's-" Kelly stopped, looking at the Doctor like she suddenly just realize he was standing there. "Why am I telling you this?" she asked hesitantly.
"Just trust me. I really am a Doctor."
Kelly still looked suspicious but continued.
"There was this guy we found in the park. One of those poor homeless fellows, yeah? Thought he was near death, just layin there, but suddenly realized he wasn't, cause he started movin and all and then brought him here and tried to figure out what was wrong with him."
The Doctor's face fell into a more serious mine, and he pondered of what was particularly odd about that.
"Take me to him," he said after a while
"Sure thing, Doc," she said sarcastically. "I'm sorry, but I can't just take you to see patients like that. I need some sort of authorization, you know?"
Before she even finished the sentence, the Doctor had reached inside his jacket and flipped out the psychic paper.
"I think you'll find all my authority here," he said, throwing her a smile with it. Kelly scanned it and looked at the Doctor again. Then she smiled slightly and gave a sign to the Doctor so he should follow her. He turned the paper around to look at it briefly, before stuffing it into his jacket again.
Kelly went through the room and pressed the button for the elevator. The doors opened swiftly and they stepped inside. They were both standing in awkward silence as the silly elevator music began, and the Doctor noticed she was staring at him. The small metal room bounced as the wires began to pull it up.
"What's wrong?" he asked, looking curiously at her. She blinked a few times and snapped out of her daze.
"It's just... I just don't get what's with the bowtie," she said shyly, pointing at it.
"Oi," the doctor replied, fixing it. "Bowties are cool." He turned to look back at the door and started humming with the elevator music.