Disclaimer: You'd think I'd have learned by now to stay out of fan fictions before I'm actually in the fandom, but for some reason, that lesson escapes me. I don't own Doctor Who and forgive me for any OOC-ness – I'm just a poor lost fangirl with a whole lot of things wrong with her head.
Chapter 1
Okay, what a night! The brunette girl dragged herself out of bed with a distinct feeling of shame and general filthiness. A quick glance in the mirror across the room confirmed her fears – thankfully not her worst ones. Yes, she had been magnificently drunk last night. No, nothing monumentally tragic, stupid, or destructive had happened. She shuddered and pushed her mane of brown, hip-length snarls behind her back as she headed for the shower. Last night's T-shirt, bra, and jeans hit the bathroom floor, causing her to grin at her own habit of not wearing underpants. Scrunching her nose at her looks in the mirror, she leaned over and grabbed her toothbrush, taking care of that quickly. The following rinse honestly made her feel a whole lot better and she smiled at her rumpled reflection. Steam from the shower filled the little tile room and she stepped in with a hiss.
"Oh yeah, that happened," she said to herself, reaching for comb and conditioner to try and tame the rat's nest. "God, my friends completely rock."
The black plastic comb really did work in conjunction with the conditioner and soon all that lovely brown hair streamed down her bare back. She tried really hard not to look too pleased with herself, failed miserably, and plunked down to shave her legs. Yes, she'd shaved them last night before going out, but she felt the need to scrape whatever happened last night off her. Normally, she liked to sing in the shower, but this morning she simply hummed rather tunelessly. With that business taken care of, and a few other things, she grabbed her sea sponge and peppermint-rose body wash. Ooh, yes… That was exactly what she needed – get the rest of last night off and then ponder what happened. Her face still possessed that rather silly grin.
Washing, for this girl, normally didn't take that long. She was generally all business – any sort of play happened with her massaging shower head and not before she felt clean. This morning, though, she took her time. The sponge felt terrific on her shoulders especially. With all the white suds washing down the drain, she could almost see the stupidity that happened last night. Oh, and it was fantastic – a new high in lows! She scrubbed at her breasts, gritting her teeth at how tender they were (probably from whatever happened last night) and moved on down her body. After her shower, she intended to call her friend whose party it had been and try to scrape together some details. For the moment, though, she just bent forward and continued down her legs to her ankles.
"Victoria, you're beautiful," she addressed herself with another grin. "Never, ever change."
Studying herself, she decided it had been a good idea to invest in that Brazilian. One, she really liked how it looked and felt. Two, she had someone in mind to show it off to – she knew herself and her friends and her pants had definitely stayed on during the festivities. Three, it made a hot shower even hotter. Her thoughts and hand found the massaging shower head and she hissed at the soreness in her knees as she maneuvered a bit to lie down in the bath tub. She closed her eyes and started to let the heat of the water and the massaging jets take over. It never failed – nothing got her off faster. White teeth dug into her lip, almost causing her to taste blood. Her legs started to shake and she bucked against the water jets. Oh hell, she was so close she could almost feel it – fuck, she wanted to come so badly, right now!
It totally sucked when she heard that crash and let out a yell to rattle window panes all over the house.
She quickly rinsed herself off, squeezed her hair out in a hurry, and turned the water off, cursing all the while as she reached for her towel. Wrapping up, she banged the bathroom door open and threw a ratty lavender bathrobe on over her towel. Whatever just made that noise had better hope that it was cute and fluffy or something like that. Certainly she wouldn't admit to being hung-over, but she had most definitely awakened with a mild headache that had just caused her to become homicidal! Tugging her bathrobe closer around her, she stomped to her front door. Cracking her neck and not giving it much more thought, she threw the door open, stepping out angrily and shivering.
"Who the hell are you?" she shouted at the gentleman stumbling round on her front lawn. "And did you… crash… that?"
Weird! There was a large blue box-looking thing tilted to one side and stuck in the grass – she wasn't entirely sure who, but someone was bound to pitch a fit about that. Still clutching her robe and the towel under it, she made her way down the front steps to confront the man with the box. He looked like a real weirdo – twill jacket with elbow patches and bow tie, just to start with, and a fez. Who the hell wore stuff like that? Tall and thin, it appeared his clothes almost didn't fit right, but somehow it worked for him. However, she did stop herself. After all, only an idiot would walk right up to some crazy who'd just apparently…
Wait a second, hold that thought! Had this guy somehow… dropped out of the sky in that box thing somehow? The young lady shook her head, swishing wet hair around, and wondered if maybe she had just passed out on Seamus's front porch and was dreaming still. Taking a deep breath and letting out, she stepped off that last step and inched towards him. First and foremost, she wanted to resolve this quickly so she could go back inside and vegetate. The guy kept circling the blue box-looking thingy and muttering to himself. Victoria couldn't quite tell what he was saying, but she could make out that he had an English accent. Twitchy little bastard, he sure seemed to be. Oh well, this could go one of two ways, so she went up and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Ah!" he startled, pulling a funny vibrator-looking thing from inside his jacket.
"Uh, mister?" she started, staring at the object with great misgiving. "Might be a stupid question, but… what are you doing?"
He cocked his head to one side, looking at her as though she were a particularly interesting specimen of a rare type of bird.
"Not to worry, I'm the Doctor," he told her in a frank manner, turning round and pointing at the box with the vibrator. "Minor… inconvenience… These things happen, I suppose."
Victoria stared at him – the neighbors across the street had come out with their tiny, fuzzy dog, and the three of them gawked at the scene in the yard.
"Minor inconvenience?" the girl bristled, curling her toes against her cold, cold front walk and feeling very frustrated. "Again, I ask you, minor inconvenience? One, what is this… thing? And two, I want it – and you – gone and I mean right now before I call the police!"
The man turned back round to face her again, still not putting that vibrator thing away – could he not stand to have it out of his hand? Victoria took a step back – the object lit up and made a strange whistling sound. Maybe it wasn't a vibrator. Well, she didn't want to know what it was. She just wanted to not have to look at it.
"No, dear, no need to summon the police," the guy told her in what, she was sure, he thought was a reassuring tone. "I can have this fixed in a quick…"
He didn't finish his sentence, the sound of the blue box beeping angrily and shaking back and forth cutting him off.
"Oh come, darling!" he said to the box. "We'll be off again in no time at all!"
Oh great, thought Victoria, crazy man on the front lawn talking to a great huge box. This could only end well, the line of thought continued sarcastically. She went up and tapped him on the shoulder again, dodging as he swung round animatedly.
"Really, dear, what is it?" he asked, a note of agitation in his voice as he continued to point the lit-up vibrator… thing… at the box. "I am trying to get out of your way. She's just being rather difficult."
Victoria had no idea why this crazy man referred to the blue box tilting dangerously, embedded in her front lawn, as "she" and she didn't really want to know, but she did decide to try again.
"Look… um… sir?" she ventured, this time walking forward and getting deliberately into his line of vision. "You have got to hang on for a second and tell me what's going on."
When the box emitted another string of noises, which the odd-looking man seemed to understand, he did let his shoulders drop and turned to face Victoria. It was then that she noticed he looked quite lost. He tucked the vibrator-looking object back into his jacket, straightened the lapels, and tilted his head quizzically at her. If his composure had actually been lost, he certainly regained it at lightning speed. Victoria tilted her head back at him, scrunching her nose to one side and raising an eyebrow at him, waiting for an explanation.
"Maybe you better come on inside," she told him after a second, wondering if she had all of a sudden lost her mind, justifying herself by saying, "It's cold out here."
She turned and went back up the steps. The blue box made another few sounds, the man who'd introduced himself as the Doctor told it something, and then he followed Victoria. He shut the door carefully behind him, looking round somewhat bewilderedly at the house. A large dog trotted in from the other room, sniffing him momentarily before scooting away. A smaller, much older dog followed, giving the new arrival a rather derisive stare and departing as well. The Doctor continued after Victoria, on into the living room. She sat down on one of two rather shabby tan love seats, motioning to him to take the other one. He did, once more tilting his head at her like she might well be something marvelous.
"What are you staring at?" she asked him, feeling slightly uncomfortable. "Is there something on my face?"
The Doctor shook his head, muttering something that she couldn't quite distinguish.
"So… how did you wind up in my front yard, tell me that?" she continued on being direct. "And what is that box thing?"
Those darting eyes all of a sudden became very piercing, staring into Victoria's own hazel-green ones intensely. She got the idea quite immediately that perhaps she shouldn't be asking any more questions, not something she normally felt. It took a lot to shut her up. Her long fingernails dug into the lavender fleece of her bathrobe as she clutched it even closer. The raggedy man in her living room had this presence about him that both frightened and intrigued her. One, normally, she probably would have called the police straightaway about some idiot on her lawn, especially after last Christmas… And no young lady in her right mind invited a crazy man in! Something in his bearing, however, let her know that he would not harm her.
"We had… slight technical difficulties," he said rather sheepishly. "Got into a small disagreement, you see – made landing quite suddenly… necessary."
Victoria decided she really didn't want to know what the guy meant by 'had a disagreement' with that blue thing. Whether or not he was all that put together upstairs, he seemed like he didn't mean anything by it. He did look at her rather curiously, sort of drifting about the living room and examining objects on the walls and shelves. She watched him in equal interest, tilting her head as he picked up a frame containing a photo of her as a small child. It actually made her smile – something about him picking that up brought back the memory of being an angel in the Christmas pageant. Of course, she had been in the fourth grade, but it felt at once like it was yesterday. Even the smell of the church's incense came back to her, and she got the feeling he had directly caused this. The Doctor, as he said he was, set the photo frame down.
"I do thank you," he told her, smiling in a very soft manner all of a sudden. "For inviting me in…"
Very quickly, like getting hit with heat from a hair-dryer, the young lady felt very warm, and the Doctor had seated himself on the loveseat beside her. She swallowed hard, feeling like her bathrobe and towel had disappeared. Obviously, they had not, so her hand tightened on the collar of the robe and she pressed her knees closely together. The perfectly confident look had returned to his face as he continued to look round, bringing his bearing back to almost-overwhelming.
"You… um… You're welcome," she returned stiffly, still unsure really what to do with herself. "So… How long is it going to take to fix?"
The self-proclaimed Doctor looked sheepish again.
"Here's the thing, dear," he started off trying to explain. "It's not so much a question of 'fixing it' as it is a matter of 'waiting on her.' She's quite displeased with me this time."
Victoria clacked her teeth together, an old nervous habit – she really didn't like him referring to that big blue thing like it was a lady, and a rather snippy one at that. Oh hell, now she – Victoria – had taken up that method of reference as well. Something about this raggedy man's oddness was some sort of contagious. He was clearly crazy; there was no doubt of that. However, the overwhelming majority of her gut feelings continued telling her that he was not going to do anything untoward. She turned toward him on the loveseat, studying him carefully. The smile had returned to his face and he leaned forward like he had some sort of wonderful secret to tell her.
"Are you aware…" he began, leaning in just a touch closer to her. "You smell very much like a fresh-baked peach pie?"
