The party was already background noise to me as I made my way to my room upstairs. I could hear my cousin blurting out some joke followed by everyone else in my family going into a boisterous chorus of laughter. I've already had my fair share of socializing and needed a little bit of some alone time before my mother would decide to call me to go get this or go do that.
I stopped by outside my door to listen just one last time to the latest joke my cousin was about to give. When the muffled hysterics went off, I gave a soft laughter and shook my head. My hand grabbed the doorknob and I pushed the door inwardly.
"Hello"
I froze on the spot.
"Oh, I just- my uh, ship got a little stuck and I'm recharging it,"
The voice -a British accent- came from a silhouette of a tall, skinny man sitting on my window sill. There's a blue silhouette of a something on the roof but I couldn't make of it from the glass. I tried to decide between fight or flight response.
But all my body could do was stiffen.
"Hey, don't worry," he jumped off the window sill and toward me. "I mean no harm,"
What looked like his arm lifted forward as if to point at me. His fingertip glowed blue and a weird noise rang. Then my room flooded with light.
"I'm the Doctor by the way,"
My eyes adjusted and I realized everything. It wasn't his fingers pointing. It was a silver stick with a blue tip. His tall skinny frame was clad in a blue suit. He was smiling friendly but his gaunt face was lined with sadness. I studied the rest of his features. The mess of dark sticky uppy hair crowned his head. There was a pink gift ribbon stuck to his head but I still recognized him nonetheless.
He was the Doctor. The Tenth Doctor. At least he looked like it.
"Y-you can't be," I stuttered, mentally cursing my sudden shift to a fail British accent whenever I'm thinking of Doctor Who. "Doctor Who," I supplied, reverting back to my usual accent. "…sadly, is only a TV show,"
"I'm still not used to the fact that I'm a TV show in this universe," he shrugged.
"A TV show I love so much and sold my soul to," I muttered quickly before speaking normally again. "But still fictional,"
"But I am. Two hearts," He tossed me a stethoscope. "Listen,"
He moved towards me and I cautiously put on the stethoscope and listen to his chest; the left, then the right. Both of the hearts boomed with life.
My one and only heart seemed to do the same as well.
"How can I trust that you really are the Doctor?" I said, quickly stepping back from him.
The Doctor looked like he was about to roll his eyes as he turned away. "Typical of you humans to not believe even when it's staring you in the face,"
He crashed in my bed and bumped his head on the wall. I giggled while he rubbed the sore part.
"Oi, it hurt,"
His trademark automatic pout melted my heart and I decided to step inside and close the door behind me.
I sat next to him in bed and stared warily at him. He didn't seem to be in pain anymore. He just laid on the bed against its length. His feet were planted on the floor. The growing silence was quite awkward. So, I bombarded him with questions to keep the quiet away.
"So, you're the Doctor,"
"Yep,"
"I'm guessing my world is your parallel universe?"
"Yep,"
"And I'm guessing that's the TARDIS outside,"
"Yep,"
"How did you know you were a TV show?"
"Got bored while I was stuck here," he began to reach for the metal bars of the second bed above. " I happened to pass it by,"
"And you scoured the internet without any trace of spoilers? That's… amazing," I said, rather impressed.
"Had the TARDIS block it from my browsing as soon as I knew," he explained. I just sat there gaping at him.
"So," I said, shaking my head. "What was your latest great adventure, Doctor?"
He propped his head to face me and for a flicker of a moment, hurt seemed to register in his features before smiling casually.
"Oh, I just kept peace between the space rabbits and space hamsters. Then, I ended up slipping in the crack to this universe after drawing their planets closer to the vegetative planet, Karedoff," he narrated. "I've been mostly closing up parallel universes but I got sidetracked in the rabbit-hamster situation and well, I fell in one of the cracks I was supposed to close off. The aftereffects of the near destruction the Daleks caused made cracks in many other universes as well. I might have accidentally dropped in yours. Cozy universe you got here," His face turned sour. "Bit dull if you ask me, though. Nothing ever happens, but…" He sprang up from his position eagerly and-
WHAM
"Ah, agh," he groaned after hitting his forehead on the metal bar of my double deck. "Blimey, get a taller bed will you,"
"Ten, your Eleven is starting to show," I snickered.
"What?"
"Spoilers, Doctor,"
He began to groan in pain again and I asked if he had some ice in the TARDIS but he said it's too far away so I had to risk leaving him in my room and sneaking some ice downstairs. My little nephew nearly went with me to the room but I made up an "I-am-cleaning-and-not-to-be-disturbed" excuse and he left me alone.
"So…." He was holding the makeshift ice pack on his forehead and there was another awkward silence that I needed to break. "Which alternate universe catastrophe was this? The one with only Daleks or the one with plus Cybermen?"
"Daleks only,"
"Ah, I see…"I paused for a while to think of what to say next. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry,"
"Yeah, well. A travelling timelord like me gets used to it," he tried to sound detached but his voice seemed to squeak a bit.
"In this world," he said after a few seconds. "Does Donna… does she remember?"
I gave him a look of pity and he smiled sadly. "I know it probably follows what actually happens to me but I mean. The woman who plays her and the man with the same face as I. Are we…"
"Oh," I perked up. "David and Catherine are such very good friends. Did a bunch of comedy skits because of how you and Donna have such wonderful chemistry. Even had a romcom together,"
He raised his brow at that and I nearly broke into laughs at how very Ten his eyebrows were being.
"I haven't seen it though so, I can't tell you about it," I raised my hands up defensively. "But feel free to ask other things and I'll answer the best I can. No spoilers though,"
He put down his ice pack and then stared at me as if he wanted to say something but is unsure.
"You can ask away, Doctor. You can trust honesty from me," I said to reassure him.
"What about," he began hesitantly. "Rose?"
"You and her. David and Billie. You're very good friends but you're not," I thinned my lips regretting my promise of truth already.
"I… I see," he studied the darkening spot on my bed that was being soaked by the melting ice. "Okay,"
"You married your fifth reincarnation's daughter though and she's very lovely. You have wonderful kids together and a great career ahead of you," I very nearly mentioned that he was married to his daughter, Jenny but he seemed to have this heartbreaking look of disappointed relief that the joke felt inappropriate to say.
"At least I know in another universe I am taken care of,"
I scooted closer to him and awkwardly wrapped my arms around him.
"Hey, Doctor. I just want you to know that even if there is no actual Doctor you in this universe, you have greatly inspired so many of us to believe in ourselves. You taught us that we are important, too, and that we should use our brilliant, unique selves to make this world better,"
He returned my hug and whispered. "Thank you,"
"I don't know how your story got into this universe but, thank God and thank you for impacting my earth. I am glad to be a whovian,"
He quickly broke the hug. "Whovian?!"
"Well, yeah. Fans of your show are called whovians,"
He made the sour face again.
"Well, what would you suggest?" I was trying look irritated but instead, I ended up becoming very amused.
He opened his mouth only to close it. "Whovian it is,"
My lips curled into a smug smile when I heard my mother call out to me.
"One moment, please. My mama gets really cranky when I don't respond,"
"Ugh," his nose wrinkled in disgust. "Even your mothers here are…"
I rolled my eyes in jest. "Tell me about it,"
And I ran out telling him to sonic the door so no one would find him. Apparently, she just wanted to ask me a bunch of questions about the mockingjay movie. I was kept for about half an hour with no way out. Afterward, I went back to my room and knocked on the door.
"Doctor, it's me, you can un-sonic it now,"
But there was no response.
"Doctor?" I knocked again.
This time, my response came as a sound of grinding wood which I thought was my drawing board being dragged around the floor. But then I realized, it was the sound of the TARDIS de-materializing.
I tried the doorknob to find it unlocked and the dark blue silhouette outside was slowly fading. I ran to my window and the only time I actually saw the blue police box was its transparent, disappearing form. I couldn't even scream out for the Doctor for the words were stuck in my throat. So, I just stood behind my window in great sadness that I'll never see my Doctor ever again.
When the TARDIS was completely gone, I sank back on my head, holding on that the meeting was indeed real and not just my imagination. But the sliver of realness began to agonizingly slip away and it felt like a dream. That is until my arm spread wide. My hand felt an object as I stretched my arm across the bed. I stood and turned to the direction. I saw my phone with the pink gift ribbon which was once on his head on it. I picked it up and behind my phone was a sticky note with a message.
'Ideas are the things that can travel anywhere. Even, through different dimensions. I am glad to be in a part of your safe /and mildly boring/ world. I hope to continue making your world a better place in a different way.'
-The Doctor
PS. I fixed your phone. Big memory. Faster system. Nicer camera. And well, it's, how you would say, COOLER now.
PPS. If you're wondering this is some sort of special psychic paper that translates my message so you can understand even without the TARDIS' help. Sorry but this can only translate the message I wanted to tell you so you can't try and write other languages on it to have it translated. One cool thing at a time, friend. One at a time
PPPS
I like the word "cool"… I think.
Though a lot of other things ran my mind on what I should've done with the time I had with the Doctor, I looked at the features in my new and improved phone and felt at least lucky that I had to meet him.
