Fire Flies
So, this story is going to be a self-insert. It's nothing major, just how I imagine my meeting the Doctor would go. Of course, in this instance, Doctor Who the series doesn't exist as that would be weird. So, bearing that in mind, I have tried to make this as close to my own character as possible, of course it's a little difficult to imagine what my life would be like without the Doctor in it. But I have given it a go. Please enjoy. This story is also going to feature the 12th Doctor, Peter Capaldi. I have changed the names of persons specified as I do not have permission to use their names.
A/N: Sorry that it is going to take a while to get to the initial story, but I'm setting up some background and giving some insight into the type of person I am. Sorry in advance.
Mondays were always the worst. Even though I was born on a Monday, I had never liked them.
White, denim skinnies, white shirt, orange jacket, hair twisted up with a clip. Monday's, Thursday's and Fridays were Uni days. It was a warm day, which wasn't helping, but I had a presentation to worry about today, so I wanted to look good. I'd only been told I had to do this yesterday, I was hoping to have had more time to prepare, but a couple of the other groups had to pull out and so instead of going on Wednesday, I was now doing this today. Great.
"Running late?" My Mother asked, her eyebrow raised in that condescending way mothers do when they think they're right.
"Not exactly..." I murmured, more focussed on trying to organise my notes before my bus came then actually paying attention to her.
"What's going on then?" She was looking up at the clock, but I couldn't see her. "It's nearly 20 past 7, shouldn't you have left by now?"
I rolled my eyes. "All my classes for today were rescheduled because of the presentation today, I told you last night, remember?"
There was a moment of silence and I thought my mother had left the room. When I heard a shuffle beside me however, I looked up to find that she was holding the missing notes in her hand, shaking her head. I smiled lightly, they must have been where I left them.
"Bedroom?"
She nodded. I took them from her and placed them in my pile, shoving the rest of my notes in my bag. The presentation was supposed to be half an hour long, but I spoke fast when I was nervous, so I hoped I could keep it together. I wasn't sure who was after me, but I didn't want one of the idiots in my class to see me fail miserably.
I headed out the door, sticking my phone in my back pocket as I went, and my mother threw my jacket out to me. I looked down but didn't remember having taken it off. My mum shook her head at me and I shrugged the jacket on. Today was starting out so well.
After a twenty minute bus ride to the station, ten minutes on the train (which I was extremely lucky was exactly on time) and then another fifteen minutes or so on the shuttle, it was already just after eight and I was again rushing, though this time it was to get to my class room in order to set up before my tutor got there. I should have been ready five minutes ago, in case she got in early, not that she ever did. She had a gene for perpetual lateness.
By the time I got to the classroom and managed to set up in record time, it was just on a quarter past and my tutor Lillian walked in. She was a wonderful tutor and we all loved her. As a PHD candidate, she was currently studying as well, so she really understood what some of us were going through. She often gave us a little leeway with assignments and allowed two weeks instead of the standard one. We were almost always grateful.
The one thing that really had me worried about this assignment though, was my subject matter. Though we were given a topic from a randomised databank, I still managed to pull up, Dickens, which just so happened to be what Lillian was doing her PHD on. If I stuffed this up, she was going to know about it straight away. I was not at all happy when I realised, but it also made me research a lot harder than I otherwise might have. I wanted to pass this class.
DWPC
About half an hour later, I had managed to complete my presentation and though I had seen no specific emotions from Lillian, I was worried that I might have stuffed up somewhere along the way, though it was hard to tell. The person who was presenting after me, Bec, was a good mate of mine and so I wasn't upset that she had been in the room for the last ten minutes of my presentation. Her son was sitting at the back of the room and he smiled at me as I helped Bec set up.
Once Bec's presentation was finished I smiled at her. "Do you want breakfast?"
"That would be nice, why not. The cafeteria should be open now."
I grinned and beckoned to her son, Mark, to join us. He was a little cutie, about five years old with grey-blue eyes and a killer smile. I didn't see him often, but when I did he was always a pleasure to be around.
It took us nearly half an hour to get our food, eat it and have a decent conversation which mostly consisted of what we were doing for our summer classes. As it turned out Bec and I, and not for the first time, had chosen the same class. It was funny because we were studying two different things, but I liked the possibility of her company, she was always welcome.
By about ten thirty, when the cafeteria was starting to fill up for the rush, Bec and myself decided that it was high time we got ourselves out of there. I waved her goodbye and started on my way to the train station. Though it hadn't cooled down any, the shuttle wouldn't arrive for another 15 minutes and so I decided that walking wasn't a terrible idea. I didn't really have a time limit to get home by, but I didn't feel like sitting in a cramped shuttle either.
Pulling out my phone and sticking my earphones in, I turned my music on and began the leisurely walk. I didn't mind the weather like this, it made me happy I lived in Australia. It was only on those 40-degree days that I started to wish that I was somewhere else. There had been one time when I was still in high school when my shoes had melted to the asphalt because of the heat. I'd been allowed to go home, but those had been my favourite pair of shoes.
DWPC
It took me a while to notice that something wasn't right. There were no cars on the road and no people on the side walk, which didn't make any sense. Taking my earphones out and popping my phone in my back pocket I frowned at the surrounding area. The train station was close now, but I felt something wasn't quite right. Suddenly a blue Police box caught my attention. I hadn't noticed it before, but I'd had my nose in my phone, so it was entirely possible I'd missed it.
"What's that doing here?"
I blinked and took a couple of steps closer to it. I'd never seen anything like it before and certainly it couldn't have been here last week. I was sure I would have noticed it. As I got closer to it, I retracted my hand, wondering if it might have been a trick, a game one of my mates was playing on me. "Alright, Amanda, is this you?"
When the door to the Police box opened, I nearly fell on my arse jumping backwards. It hadn't occurred to me that there would be someone inside. He wasn't someone that I recognised, so probably not one of my friends. The door closed behind him as I tried to peek inside – I could have sworn there was a light in there. The guy was older, dressed in a dark suit. He looked about my father's age, though I couldn't see his face well enough to know for sure.
The man frowned slightly and waved his hand at me. "Excuse me Miss, do you mind moving to your left just a tad?"
I stared at him but did as he asked. He spoke strangely, and I couldn't quite put my finger on his accent. As I moved, he held up a weird device that beeped when he moved it. I'd seen enough sci-fi movies to assume it was a tracker of some sort. Though I had no idea what movie it was from.
"What is that?" I asked, moving my eyes from him to the object he was holding. It looked very well made, I couldn't see glue anywhere.
The man looked at me, with something that resembled annoyance and proceeded to fiddle with the object in his hand. "It's a Morphic Tracker."
"What movie is that from then?"
The man looked confused. "It's not from a movie, I built it."
I laughed slightly and shook my head. "No, I know that, I just meant what show is it from, is it from a game or something?"
Again, the man shook his head and looked confused. "It's not from a game, I invented it, it tracks the changes in the atmosphere and tells me where the fireflies are."
He was speaking English, but I had no idea what he was talking about. I stood looking at him, my mouth slightly agape as I tried to process the information. "Why are you using the atmosphere to track Fire Flies?" I discreetly looked around, wondering if I'd accidentally stepped onto a set and everyone was just waiting for me to realise it.
The man seemed annoyed again and simply pointed to the bleeping thing. I looked at it but could make no sense of what it was trying to say, if it was trying to say anything at all. "Are these little line things supposed to be trees, because this place looks familiar."
"Where is this place?"
I pointed to the park behind me, "I just walked through it from uni," I said, turning to look at it. "It was eerily quiet actually."
The man took off at a run and I stared after him. He seemed like a strange person, though there was something about him.
I turned back on my walk and pulled my phone out of my pocket. I looked up at the sky in confusion as my phone was registering that the temperature had dropped about 12 degrees and that rain clouds had set in. I couldn't see anything.
Looking back towards the park, I noticed the man was stood there looking at his scanner. With his back turned to me, I could just about make out weird shapes on his scanner. Curiosity piqued, I shrugged and headed over to him.
"What are you doing?"
The man ignored me and pressed some buttons on his machine. It really was an incredible design. I hoped he would tell me more about the intricacies of it later, it might be something I'd be interested in and if not me then perhaps my uncle. He was always looking for more sci-fi things to get into.
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
Little sparkling light gathered around the device and the man swatted them away slightly, "it's not calibrated yet, be patient."
"Was that to me?"
"No, it wasn't."
Okay, so this man was talking to himself like a weirdo. Abort. "Are you going to answer me, or be rude?"
"No."
I shook my head. "Alright then, I'll leave you alone."
The man nodded, and I turned away from him, he was more than a little odd, but there was just something about him that made me curious. I shook my head to alleviate the thoughts and started back on my original task, getting home. It was going well until I started feeling little bumps against me from a seemingly invisible presence.
"What in the world?"
Looking around me, I could see tiny little light sources, like little faeries buzzing around me. They were moving about all over the place, bumping against my hands, my face and my legs. I had no idea what they were, or what they were doing, but they clearly wanted something.
"Stay still."
"Are you expecting me to do something else with these things flying around me?"
"These things are the fireflies I mentioned earlier. They won't hurt you, but I scared them, and they wanted something familiar to be near."
"Familiar?"
"Human."
I nodded. "Right okay," because that makes perfect sense.
The man made a few adjustments to his scanner thing and the bugs slowly moved away from me into a ball between us instead. Was this also part of the story, playing with fireflies?
"Uh, what am I supposed to do now?"
"If you could just follow me, that would be great, they feel more comfortable with something familiar around and I don't want them to run away again."
I bit my lip and thought for a second. He was kind of weird and I wasn't sure it would be the smart idea, he could have been a murderer from all indications. We were out in the open though, the park wasn't far from the station and I could probably get someone's attention if this went south. God, my mother was going to kill me.
"Okay, I'll come with you. Do you promise you're not going to kill me and stuff my body in a tree?"
He was annoyed yet again and there was a strange twinkle in his eye that kind of worried me. I couldn't quite place the emotion hidden in it. Still, probably against my better judgement, I followed him, honestly how bad could this go?
DWPC
Watching the man work was strange. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing, but, at the same time, he looked like he was completely lost. Trying to figure out what he was even doing was enough to give me a headache. It was all so weird.
The little light bugs continued to move in strange patterns in the air, though I had followed this man back to the Police box, we'd stopped just before reaching it as apparently the fireflies were concerned. I didn't know how or why he thought that, since fireflies didn't talk, but he seemed intensely focused on their movements and so I didn't want to disturb him.
I looked at my phone momentarily and was shocked at the time, we'd already been here for an hour and still there were no cars anywhere to be seen. That was very strange. Considering many of the students would drive to and from, it was hard to believe none of them would come down this street, or even that none of them had parked here. I was about to explain my weird feelings to the man when I noticed he'd moved to the Police box and was currently stepping inside it. I stopped when I got a good look at the Police box. I reached my hand out to touch it and had wonder if he had built this by hand as well. The finish was immaculate, and the paint looked realistically faded. There were chips in places and the texture was astounding. The craftmanship was amazing.
I knocked on the door and pushed it open expecting to see him standing right in front of me. What I was greeted with defied both physics and my imagination.
"Oh, my, god."
I stepped back out again and walked around the outside. This wasn't right. This was impossible. I knocked on all four of the walls, just making sure that they were sturdy, and I wasn't imagining them, though considering what I had witnessed, this still was not convincing.
I stepped back around to the door, expecting to be confronted by a wall. When there wasn't one, I stepped back out again. "This is RIDICULOUS!"
I moved back inside, and the fireflies followed me, though they seemed to be a little tentative about it. The man in question was standing in the middle of a ridiculously large room, his head bowed over the console, looking at something I couldn't see. The room looked like a giant computer with metallic bracers and benches.
The man looked over at me, a knowing look in his eye. I was having trouble understanding what I was seeing, let alone explaining it to myself. "This is… it's…"
He winked. "Go on, I've heard it all before."
"But I thought muggles weren't supposed to know about magic."
The man blinked, clearly a little shocked. The first emotion I had seen from him other than annoyance. "Well, I wasn't expecting that. Harry Potter fan, are we?"
"Yes, but that isn't the issue here. How is this possible. Surely, it's not, this is some kind of illusion, right?" I asked, holding my hands in front of me and feeling around, wondering when I would hit the wall that had to be here somewhere. "You're a magician aren't you, like Cosentino?"
He rolled his eyes. "No, not a magician, and this is real, what you are seeing is actually here. Look." He walked over to me, straight up to me as though there were no barriers present to stop him. He reached out to me and lightly dropped his hand on my shoulder. If I was imagining him, he shouldn't have been able to touch me. .
"Then what is this. It's so much bigger on the inside."
"That was the phrase I was looking for. That's the one they all say. Remember that for next time." He said, walking back over to the console and sliding a screen towards him. "This is called a TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space."
"Are you trying to tell me this thing is a space ship?"
"I said time and relative dimension in space, it's a space ship, that can also travel through time."
"So, you're from the future?"
"Not exactly, I'm not from this planet."
"So, you're an alien?"
"From my point of view, you are the alien."
"But this is my planet."
"And I have been on it since before you were born. Besides, it's not just yours, the Silurian's own it too."
"The what?"
"The Silurian's, you know, big lizard like creatures, green scaly skin. Don't you know about them?"
"No, I'm sure I would remember seeing something like that."
"What year is this?"
"2013, why? You're the supposed time traveller, shouldn't you know?"
"Well, normally yes, but the TARDIS has been in a bit of disrepair I'm afraid and I haven't had the time to fix her."
"You speak as if it's alive."
"Isn't that interesting?" He asked, turning back to play with the console.
I walked over to where he was, having gotten tired of trying to figure out this illusion. "So, if you're an alien, how come you look human? Is it some kind of filter thing?"
"No, this is what I look like, my people all look like this, but we came first, so technically, you look like us."
I shook my head. It was supposed to be a normal day, I was supposed to be doing normal things and now all of this was happening. "It's weird."
"What's your name anyway?" He asked the question that I hadn't even thought about. It seemed funny that I was standing in a Police box, that was apparently bigger on the inside, exchanging pleasantries with a complete stranger. An alien stranger if what he was saying was true.
"My name is Teigan, Teigan Kaster."
"Teigan, I knew another by that name once, oh a long time ago now, I was a different man then."
I had no idea what he was talking about, but he seemed almost whimsical. "What should I call you?"
"I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor Who?"
"Exactly."
"What?"
"I'm the Doctor, that is what I'm called."
"I can't just call you the Doctor."
"Of course, you can, everyone else does."
"What kind of Doctor are you?"
"All kinds. Science, medical, engineering, you name it."
"So, you're really smart then?"
He nodded, as if this was obvious. I resigned to the fact that I was likely not going to get much more than that and decided that it was high time I make my way back home. Who knew how long I had been in this box, but it was really starting to freak me out and I was starting to believe that this, Doctor, really believed the bullshit he was feeding me.
"Well, I think I should get going, I mean, I am expected home soon and I don't want to keep my parents waiting. I mean, my train is probably already gone, so I'll have to wait for another one, but then I don't really need to tell you that do I, because you so obviously have better things to do then whatever it is I might be doing so I'm just going to leave this conversation and be on my way."
I marched over to the door and threw it open.
"Wait, Teigan!"
Too late, I was already dangly out of the TARDIS, hanging to the threshold with white knuckled fingers.
"Ahhhh!" I was too preoccupied with trying not to let go that I wasn't even able to comprehend the fact that there was a blackness with lights sprinkled around out here. I was floating, in space. What?
"Hold on, I got you." The Doctor reached down and made a grab for my hands, but I absolutely refused to let go, I didn't want to just be holding on with one hand, I was concerned that if I let go I would float away.
"I'm going to float away if I let go!" I was terrified. What the hell was happening, where was the ground?!
"You won't. Okay, you are perfectly safe, you won't float away."
"You're not the one hanging on for dear life!"
He kneeled in front of me and leaned down to look at me. "I give you my word, you will not float away. I promise."
Even though I had only just met this man, I had no idea who he really was, and I was still convinced he was a crazy nut job from an asylum, something in his voice made me want to believe him. I had thought earlier that he was in his early fifties maybe, but right now, his eyes looked as if they had seen more from life then what should be humanly possible.
"Okay."
He wrapped his hands around my wrists and steadied himself against the door with his knees. "On the count of three, I want you to let go, I will pull you in, okay?"
"Okay. On the count of three."
"I'll count with you, alright? Ready?"
I nodded, and I felt his grip tighten.
"One."
"Two"
His grip got tighter, and I looked back up at him, trying not to concentrate on the lack of mother earth beneath my feet.
"Three." He pulled me up with very little difficulty and I landed in front of him, also on my knees, shaking in shock and confusion. I was outside the TARDIS, floating in space, breathing, holding onto the threshold of the door, somehow not dead, this was all too much.
"Are you alright?" He asked me, slightly concerned which I was surprised at. He didn't even bat an eyebrow at the fact I was hallucinating at floating away, he knew it was coming.
"What was that, where is the ground?"
"We're in space, I told you this is a spaceship."
"How was I able to breath?"
The Doctor nodded. "You're lucky, the TARDIS sensed danger and extended the oxygen shell to help you. If you hadn't been holding on you might have been pulled away from the TARDIS and not been able to breath."
I held my hands to my heart to try and slow the furious pumping of blood. My body was full of adrenaline. I looked back at the Doctor and tilted my head curiously. "What are you?"
"I told you, I'm an alien."
"You can't be an alien, you don't look alien?"
"Why do you say that? Have you met an alien before?"
"Uh… not that I'm aware of."
"Then how do you know I'm not an alien?"
"I'm sure aliens don't just make a habit of showing up and kidnapping young women, I mean, this isn't the movies…"
The Doctor frowned, the fireflies moved over to flitter about near the console of the ship. "I'm sorry about that," he said as he stood up and gestured to the console. "I hadn't intended to take off with you in the ship, but the TARDIS sensed the fireflies on board and took it upon herself."
The Doctor talking about this ship as if it was alive was very confusing. I held my head. "You're an alien with a living ship, alright, so I'm in Farscape."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, "I'm not familiar with that term, what's Farscape?"
I shrugged. "It's this tv show made a few years back with wormholes and aliens and things, they have this living ship called Moya and honestly I could give you the whole plot, but there's too much to go through."
The Doctor frowned slightly. "You're taking this remarkably well."
I shrugged again, resigned to my fate. "Honestly, I'm just ignoring most of this situation right now, my brain hurts."
The Doctor nodded sympathetically. "Apologies, I'll take you back the moment I'm finished here."
I nodded. "Do you often just pop to Earth and pick up Fireflies?"
"Well, no. These guys crash landed and sent out a distress call, I was passing by, so I figured I'd give them a lift."
"Have you ever been to Earth before?"
The Doctor laughed, though it didn't seem like a happy one. "You could say that, yes."
"I'm confused."
The Doctor turned around, heading back to the console. "I have a bit of a soft spot for the people of Earth, like a pet project you could say." He held his hand out to me and I took it, allowing him to help me up, I still wasn't fully convinced about all this, but it was getting harder with each passing second to even attempt to explain it all away.
"So, you're not a crazy lunatic from an asylum somewhere?"
"Well, I have been called many things in my life, pretty sure crazy was one of them. But if you're asking me if I have intentions on hurting you, the answer is no."
"I suppose you would say that if you were though."
The Doctor nodded once, tilting his head. "Yes, I suppose you're right."
I sighed and rubbed my temples. I really needed an Advil or something because all of this was still so unbelievable. Who would have thought that something like this could even be true? I didn't think my brain was wired right. Right now, I was aware of five impossible things;
One, this man fervently believes he is an alien, whether or not that was possible was irrelevant.
Two, he had a space ship in the shape of a blue box that also happened to be a time machine.
Three, the man before me didn't seem confused or dissuaded by my hesitation, he was clearly used to it and probably expected it.
Four, he looked human, but seemed to possess knowledge that made absolutely no sense.
Five, I was actually starting to believe everything he was saying.
"Prove it to me."
He raised a slightly defiant eyebrow, an expression that almost made him seem years younger than he looked. "Sorry?"
"Prove you are an alien."
He thought for a second, his arms across his chest before he clicked his fingers and ran around and down the stairs to disappear under the floor. I leaned over the railing to ascertain where he had gone, when he reappeared with a stethoscope and a frown. "This should prove it, and if it doesn't, I'm afraid you will just have to take my word on it."
He came back up the stairs and stood in front of me, I had to look up because of the height difference. "Do you know how to take a pulse?" He asked me, tilting his head slightly in thought.
"Well I guess, I mean I've only ever done it on myself and once on a mate when we were in science class in ninth grade. But it should be the same principle, right?"
He nodded, and I breathed a sigh of relief, at least he wasn't telling me that his anatomy was completely different to my own, I wasn't sure I was ready for that conversation.
The Doctor extended his arm out to me, wrist up and I carefully wrapped my hand around his wrist, using my middle and ring fingers to apply the pressure to his wrist. I waited for a couple of seconds to be absolutely sure, but there it was as clear as day, a double pulse. I looked up at his face from where I had been staring at his hand and let it go. "Two pulses. How is that possible?"
"You wanted me to prove I am an alien, but here, take the stethoscope as well, this should prove without a doubt."
I took it from him and moved him over to sit on a small single chair beside one of the metallic consoles. It was kind of spaceshippy to look at it if the rippling affects it seemed to give was any indication. I was sure I had seen designs similar in movies and other media. The thought of really knowing this man was an alien was almost scary. "You ready? You know what you're doing?"
I just looked at him and bent over him a little as I pressed the stethoscope to his chest, just about where his heart should be assuming it was similar to humans. There it was, a normal healthy sounding heart as far as what I could tell with my lack of medical knowledge. He pointed to his right side and a followed his directions, moving the stethoscope to the right side of his chest. Sure enough, there was a second heart there. "Binary cardio-vascular system?"
"Medical terminology?"
I just blinked as I continued to listen to his heart, it was weird, hearing the two beating almost in time, but there was one of them that was beating a little faster than the other, I wasn't sure which one it was, but it made the most interesting of sounds.
"I also watch Grey's Anatomy." I told him, to answer his earlier question. "I pick up a lot of language from that show too, also Law and Order and CSI." I moved myself away from him and pulled the stethoscope out of my ears. "Okay, so you're an alien, with two hearts apparently. Does that give you any advantages? Like stamina, longer life, higher blood pressure maybe? Though maybe high blood pressure is bad, in humans it's bad anyway, but maybe for your people it's a good thing, what are your people called anyway?"
He was just looking at me."I'm sorry, I'm talking way too much aren't I, I always do that, you know when I'm nervous or confused or just curious, I like to know things and sometimes I find it hard to shut up so maybe I'll just do this." I clamped my hand over my mouth to shut myself up. This morning I had barely said two words to my mother, but now I just couldn't stop talking.
The Doctor shookhis head and took the stethoscope from my other hand and placed it over the railing. "You definitely like to talk, don't you? That's okay; I was like that once, still am sometimes. When you get me in the right mood, or I find a topic that is really interesting."
He walked around the console flipping some switches and turning some handles before speaking again. "To answer your first question, I guess I do have more stamina than say a human, but I haven't really taken much notice, it's kind of something you take for granted, I do seem to do a lot of running though, so that probably makes my stamina more substantial as well."
Something told me when he said running, he didn't mean a fifteen-minute jog around the park.
"With your question of longer life, I am around two thousand years old, so I'm sure you could put those pieces together yourself."
I dropped my hand from my mouth and nearly fell over with his casual mentioning of his age. I found myself gazing at him intently, trying to determine if he was lying, or simply joking to get a reaction out of me, neither appeared to be true so I was left with the job of trying to figure out how he could possibly be that age and still manage to look younger than my dad, who was fifty four.
"That's… I'm not sure what to say to that to be honest."
The Doctor shrugged. "You asked."
He turned back to the console and I kept watching him, the way he interacted with the ship, every touch, every caress, he was so careful, like the thing was alive. There was some beeping sounds and some lights on the console flickered, I got the distinct feeling it was, annoyed? Angry? Was this thing alive? More lights and flickering.
The Doctor looked back at me with a secretive glint in his eye. "Did I forget to mention the ship is telepathic? She can read your mind pretty well, so I would refrain from calling her a thing if I was you, you might regret it later."
"You weren't kidding when you said it was alive? I thought that was a joke."
"No, never, the TARDIS has a consciousness that allows her to tap into the minds of her occupants, she can literally feel what we need, and she provides it, how else would I be able to jump around all of time and space and not have to go home to stock up?"
"I suppose, I mean I know absolutely nothing about mechanics of this or any nature, but if you say so, I guess that does make sense. But don't you people, I mean aliens, have like space ports and stuff, you wouldn't necessarily have to go home if you didn't want to, right?"
"Well, yes, but where's the fun in stopping at every space port when you have a TARDIS that ensures you are always fed, clothed and stuffed full of everything else you could possibly dream up? Besides, not every space port carries all the necessary equipment for this kind of space exploration. I could end up stocked full of grapefruits and I hate those."
"No one likes Grapefruit."
"I did once, not this time though, funny how that works."
"What are you going on about?"
"Nothing, don't worry about it."
I rolled my eyes and walked over to sit on the chair I had checked his pulse on. It occurred to me that I had forgotten all about going home. I looked at my phone, my mum would be so worried, it was nearly three o'clock! Why hadn't she called me?
"Crap!"
The Doctor looked up, eyebrows raising as he looked at the phone in my hands. "What's wrong?"
"My mother is going to go mental, I should have been home hours ago, man she is going to kill me, I have to go and catch my train!"
The Doctor threw his hands out to stop me as I made to run towards the door again. "Wait a minute; do you keep forgetting that this is a time machine? I can just take you back to whenever you need to be. You don't have to catch the train if you don't want to."
"Sorry," I said, stepping out of his grasp, "I guess I haven't fully comprehended all of this yet. I mean, it's all so new to me. This morning I was worrying about passing my last assignment, but now I'm standing in a space ship with an alien I just met, who casually tells me he is well over one thousand years old and his ship is alive."
I held my now throbbing head and sat down. "It is a lot to take in I know, just let it flow over you, if you try too hard to think about it, you might do some serious damage to your synapses." He said it so casually, that I had to wonder if he had even said anything.
The Doctor started furiously turning dials and typing things into a keypad. "What are you doing?"
"We've not quite made it to the Fireflies homeworld yet." He said, reminding me about the fire bugs flittering around in circles above my head. "When you tried to leave the TARDIS earlier, she had to stop mid-flight for fear of you flinging yourself out into the vortex."
I bit my lip. "Uh, sorry."
The Doctor nodded. "I want to get these guys home and then we can get you home too."
I nodded, and the fireflies came to dance around me. The feeling of their wings and little furry bodies touching my face made me giggle. "Hey, that tickles."
"They like you, I don't think I would have been able to do this on my own."
"Why are they scared of you anyway, you said they sent out a distress call."
The Doctor frowned. "I'm not generally the type to pick up strays for a quick spin, they were probably concerned when I showed up, I have a small reputation, I suppose you could say."
I raised an eyebrow, but the Doctor didn't elaborate. I decided now was not the time to ask.
"How far away are we?"
"Well, from Earth or?"
"The Home planet."
"We're there now."
I rolled my eyes. "Well you coulda said."
"I did say, just then."
The Fireflies stopped dancing around me and started flittering around the Doctor. "Hmm? Oh, is that so… okay that makes sense. Of course, why would you even assume?"
I stared at the Doctor as he continued talking to the Fireflies, which still escaped me as to how he was doing that. "What's going on?"
"They asked if I could pop them a couple of months in the future, they were supposed to be gone for some time and they don't want anyone to know they crashed. So, I've told them I'll do it."
"Oh, that's actually kind of sweet."
The Doctor frowned. "I may be many things, but I am certainly not sweet."
"I didn't say you were."
"Just as well."
The Doctor tapped more buttons and for the first time I noticed the rotating panels above the console. They had strange symbols on them and I frowned as I looked at them, they almost seemed like they were for calculating coordinates, but then I knew nothing, so they could have been for decoration.
The fireflies moved towards the doors. The Doctor flipped a switch and the doors opened slowly to reveal a lush forest, the trees almost looked like they were reaching towards the doors, threatening us, or welcoming the bugs home, I wasn't sure. I couldn't believe I was looking at an alien planet. The great impossibility of all of this was slipping away slowly the more I looked at what I was seeing. This could be Earth, but there was something about it that told me clearly that it wasn't, some internal feeling that this planet was as alien as everything else I had seen in the last hour.
"So… fireflies are aliens then."
The fireflies seemed to turn to me all at once and cover my face in little firebug kisses. I wasn't sure what to call them.
"They're saying thank you."
I turned to the Doctor. "How do you mean, I didn't do anything."
The Doctor smiled. "They wouldn't have felt comfortable in here without something inherently familiar. The fireflies on Earth descended from the Fire Flies here on Melissa Minoria, they wanted to see the kind of relationship that would develop and consider themselves to have a kind of symbiotic relationship with Earth. Many Fireflies here will travel to Earth like a pilgrimage to imprint on humans and experience the symbiosis as the migrant fireflies do."
I, again, had to restrain myself from falling over at this new information, which I guess didn't really surprise me all that much. I was just about ready to accept anything the Doctor told me today, it was just one of those days. I slid off my jacket and casually tossed it onto the railing next to me. It was being to feel restricting.
"That's," I turned to the fireflies. "I'm honoured, thank you." The thought that the fireflies felt so much for us, for humans that they travelled probably millions of light years to Earth was not lost on me. I was incredibly warmed by it.
The fireflies headed out into the darkness and I wondered if it was always like this and was this why they had developed the ability to glow. I turned back to the Doctor and sighed. "You know, I still actually can't believe it. Fireflies are aliens. That's crazy. The governments of the world are arguing over land borders and there's literal aliens all around us."
"I always find it fascinating."
I snorted. "Home time then?"
The Doctor moved to a panel I hadn't seen him use, one of the secondary consoles across the rails. He flipped a lever up and turned one of the dials. The TARDIS seemed to land a little roughly this time.
"Alright, we should be just up the road a little from your house."
Ever the sceptic, I walked over to the doors and opened them, carefully this time, and peered outside. It did indeed look like my street; my bus stop was right in front of me. I peered around the corner and there I could see my house. So, he really was an alien who could travel through time and space. I looked back at him and smiled. "Sorry I doubted you."
"Many great people have doubted me Teigan, I assure you, you are not the first to have done so."
I nodded at him and was about to step out the door, when a thought occurred to me. "Why did you let me follow you before, back at the park?"
"I guess I was kind of curious."
"Why?"
The Doctor shrugged. "You have to be a special kind of person to randomly follow a stranger who's talking to fireflies."
I laughed. "I thought you might need medical attention honestly, I've trained in first aid, so I was obligated to help if I could."
He nodded. "Sure, whatever helps. It takes a special kind of person to just do that though."
"Thanks, I guess that means a lot. But, where will you go now, what will you do?"
I had to ask, he just didn't seem the type to be alone, it was just a feeling, but he seemed to me like the kind of person who needed to be with someone.
"I'll be around."
I nodded. "I just have one question."
He smiled a little, but it wasn't a happy smile, it was a sad smile.. "Just one?"
I laughed. "Fair. Are you really over a thousand years old?"
The Doctor nodded. "I am, still hard to believe?"
I shrugged. "I'm still convinced I'll go to bed tonight and realise today never happened, so…"
The Doctor nodded slightly. "Well, if it happens, I was glad to have met you today."
"I hope this isn't a dream, even if it is though, what a great dream."
The Doctor smiled and shooed me out the door. "Get gone, I have work to do."
I laughed and checked my phone, local time said it was only an hour later, which I could easily explain to my mother, so this was fine. "Thanks for today Doctor, if I thought anyone would believe me this is all I would talk about."
"Good luck with your studies."
I headed out of the TARDIS and watched as it disappeared; a strange sound encompassing it as it left. That sound would never leave me; I knew in my heart that I would hear it again.
DWPC
Three weeks later.
It hadn't taken me long to realise I'd left my jacket in the TARDIS. Explaining to my mother that I'd left it on the train had made her sigh and shake her head. According to her I'd lose my head if it wasn't attached to me. I couldn't very well tell her where it really was, she would have had me committed, I still wasn't sure I believed it myself. It all seemed almost too perfect, an alien who happened to randomly drive by and pick up a group of fireflies who'd crashed. How could that be true?
All I could think about lately was the TARDIS and the strange alien called the Doctor. It was all so dramatic, the most drama I had ever had in my life and it was contained in one day. I had to have the most boring life in existence. All that stuff he had said about aliens and things, it all sounded too good to be true. Time travel? Honestly.
Tenile knocked on my wall. "Mum asked if you're ready to go?"
I looked at my phone for the time and gasped. "Shit, yeah let me just grab my jumper."
Despite myself, I couldn't completely dismiss the memories, as I had misplaced my jacket and there were just some things that didn't make sense. I remembered that last year a whole lot of people had seemed to disappear during the Olympics, everyone said it was a magic trick, but what if it wasn't. I'd tried doing some research on the issue but most of it seemed to be classified by Torchwood and I had no idea who they were either.
Today it was cooler than it had been last time, Mondays always seemed to be cool these days, which was funny, and it wasn't like it was a competition or anything. Walking out the door I grabbed my hoodie on the way out and threw it quickly over my head. I had taken to mostly wearing jeans when I could, since I hated bare legs if I could avoid it, too much effort. Though it was coming into Summer now, so I wouldn't get away with wearing long pants or even jeans for much longer, I wanted to savour the moment.
On my way to the bus stop, I had to laugh at myself. I was starting to see things where they probably weren't. Tenile's pet box could have been something, though I was sure that something so widespread would be obvious.
"You really are out of it aren't you."
I knew that voice. I looked up and sure enough, the Doctor and the TARDIS had appeared in front of me, just like the first time we met. I blinked at him, I was too shocked to even say anything.
"Geez, you look like you've never seen a materialising TARDIS before, what's with you. I popped straight back after I left you, I wanted to return your… jacket."
The Doctor was looking at me as if he finally noticed what I was wearing. "Did you change your clothes? How did you change them so fast, I only just left you didn't I?"
I couldn't manage to speak anything yet, so I simply shook my head. The Doctor looked around and seemed to notice, as if for the first time, that it was darker then the last time he saw me. The sky looked like it was threatening to rain.
"Damn, how long has it been?"
I swallowed very slowly and bit my lip. "Three weeks."
He blanched and shook his head. "Three weeks? I am so sorry, sometimes this happens, time means very little to me, I must have miscalculated."
I shook my head as I reached out to retrieve the jacket he was holding out to me. I didn't really have anywhere to put it, so I just shrugged it on over my jumper, at least it would keep me very warm, regardless of how weird it probably looked. "I thought you had gone, disappeared out into the stars." My voice was a little smaller then I had thought, standing in the middle of the path, neighbours on all sides, talking to a strange man in a box, my neighbours were sure to have a field day.
"I just popped back to return your jacket, this is a time machine you remember, years could have passed for me."
"Considering you were gone for three weeks, I'm still not convinced of that."
"Well, I just miscalculated, besides it's not like it's been years, right, you could explain this away I'm sure." He said stroking the door to the TARDIS, which almost seemed to hum in acknowledgement. It was still strange about that telepathic-being-alive-machine that could fly through time and space thing. I didn't think I would ever get used to it.
"Besides, you got home well within time constraints, you saw another planet, you still doubt me?"
I shrugged. "I mean, not really, I remember you and you're standing in front of me so you're clearly not a dream, though you could still be a product of insanity."
The Doctor rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You're on your way to school, aren't you? Would you like a lift?"
I shrugged and stepped past him. "I hope you were keeping yourself out of trouble."
"Never."
The Doctor walked over to the console and quickly asked for the location of where we needed to go before inputting them. It was two or three seconds before the TARDIS doors opened to reveal my university parking lot. "Nice, thanks for the lift Doc."
The Doctor visibly cringed at the name and shook his head. "No, don't do that thanks."
"Whatever you say, Doc."
The Doctor rolled his eyes at me. "Good luck at school."
"It's university but thank you."
The Doctor shrugged. "School is school."
I shook my head and headed out into the carpark. I waved over my shoulder at the Doctor as I ran up the steps to get to class.
DWPC
I blinked up at the sight of the TARDIS. I wasn't expecting to see it here, but perhaps the Doctor was offering to give me a lift home too?
I knocked on the TARDIS doors and pushed them open. "Doc?"
The Doctor stood in the centre of the room, he looked nervous, but also a little concerned. "Teigan, I was wondering when you finished, I've been sitting here all day."
I frowned. "It's only been two hours, I still have a class to attend at four, usually I hang out in the library for a couple of hours to pass the time, I noticed you were still here, so I came to investigate."
The Doctor let out a sigh. "Okay, you caught me, I wanted to ask you if you wanted to come travelling with me. I mean it can just be one trip if that's all you want, or it could be more long term, you could even just specify that I only take you for one trip a week and then bring you home so you can spend time with your family before coming to see you again."
"Why me?"
The Doctor shrugged. "I thought you might like to see beyond some of the stars, you seemed to enjoy it."
I nodded. "I did. Sure, I'll come along, honestly, I don't care if you're a psychopath or not, you showed me something that I'll never see on my own. You've convinced me."
"Well, I don't know that I appreciate the name calling, but I suppose I can accept that." He said, looking remarkably relieved after the insults I just made.
I shook my head, "I am Australian, and insults are a part of who we are. I should warn you about that… Doc."
"I knew an Australian, her name was Tegan, the same one I told you about before, I met her when she was trying to get to Heathrow Airport. She didn't insult people, though I admit to her feistiness."
"Just how many people have you had with you, Doctor?" I asked, as he stepped out of the way for me to step past him into the TARDIS.
"Well, there have been a few.."
Evasive, though I wasn't really expecting anything else. "Well, it doesn't really matter, I am here now, and you are going to have a hard time getting rid of me, just so you know."
The Doctor flashed me another knowing look, though this one was slightly different to the one I had seen earlier. How can one person have so many different expressions, and yet still wear the same three? It was very confusing.
"I've had many say that, none of them are with me any longer."
I wasn't sure if that was supposed to scare me or anger me, but it did neither and I instead decided to shrug. "I am extremely stubborn." I told him winking and walking over to drop my bag onto the floor near the chair.
"Well, now that you're here, where do you want to go first?"
The question was to be expected, yet now that he had asked it, I wasn't sure where I did want to go. "Well, it can't be somewhere too dirty, I still have a class to go to later."
"What about a trip to the past, just to prove I can?"
"Hmm, Anzac Day, 1993."
The Doctor raised his eyebrow and tilted his head a little. "Why so specific, you could go anywhere, and everywhere, why specifically that day." He seemed a little worried by what I might say.
"I have always thought that if I got my hands on a time machine, the first place I would want to go would be to some place like, the Dawn of Man, or to meet Emily Dickinson, or maybe H.G. Wells or something like that, you know? But when you asked me just then, the place I wanted to go first, the first thing that came to my mind, was that date."
"Why? What significance is it to you? You weren't born then, were you?"
"No, but my Grandmother was, she died on that day."
"Teigan, I can't help you stop her from dying, the whole fabric of time will-"
"Oh, shut up will you, she died of cancer, there's nothing I could do about it, stop freaking out, I just want to be with her when she dies, she was alone in her house, blind and in pain, I just want to be with her, talk to her, you know? Can we do that please?"
The Doctor seemed to be a little taken back. I smiled and shook my head at him. "There are going to be a lot of firsts when it comes to me, Doctor, I'm starting to realise that. Just punch in the digits and let's go."
He did as I asked, and I sat back in the chair, staring up at the roof of the TARDIS, the spinning sections were interesting to look at. I made a mental note to ask the Doctor what they were later because the symbols looked incredibly intricate.
"We're here, are you sure you want to do this. It will be painful."
He was standing in front of me as I opened my eyes, though I hadn't realised I had closed them. "I'll be fine, I've been, I guess, preparing for this since I first heard about how she died. Plus, I never knew her, so I guess I don't know what I'm missing out on, I want to feel that. She was such an amazing person, apparently."
"Well, we are just outside her home, its three o'clock in the morning, why was no one with her."
I traced the lines on the chair I occupied and looked down, "they thought she would at least hold on until morning. They all went out, to the pub, they thought she would still be okay and they needed a little time to settle themselves."
I didn't hear him move, but suddenly the Doctor was holding a handkerchief out to me and I had to physically restrain myself from bursting into tears. The thought of my Grandmother left alone like that was a secret that stayed within our family. It wasn't something we were proud of. I hoped now to change that.
He held his hand out to me and I took it, allowing him to pull me up and over to the doors of the TARDIS. "You sure you're ready to do this?"
I nodded and opened the doors wide; the house looked the same as all the pictures. All the lights were off. "Can we get in?"
"Yeah, my sonic is good with doors." He pulled a tiny flashlight out of his pocket.
"I thought that was a flashlight from the future or something."
The Doctor snorted, "Hardly, it's a sonic screwdriver; its good at opening things."
I nodded and looked towards the door. "Okay, I'm ready to go. After this, you're taking me to another planet, preferably one with a library, I need to study."
"Sure kid, whatever you say."
"I'll need some time to recover after this after all, it'll give you some time to think about whether you're making a mistake by asking me to stay."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Elaborate, please?"
I grinned at him. "I just need you to know I can be very annoying."
The Doctor nodded and looked back at the door seriously. "Noted."
I turned back to the house and took a deep breath, standing beside the Doctor, this still seemed surreal, my grandmother was dead and yet I was about to go and speak to her. I suddenly felt the Doctor's hand in mine and I looked up at him. I didn't realise I had been crying until my vision of him was watery.
"Are you honestly okay?"
I smiled, "I will be, I need to do this. Change just a little bit of history, something to make her better, it won't hurt, right?"
The Doctor took a moment before replying. "No, something this insignificant shouldn't do any harm, I don't see why we really can't do this."
I nodded. "Good, I want to see her."
The Doctor and I stepped out of the TARDIS and up to the door. The Doctor squeezed my hand one more time for turning to the door and holding his sonic screwdriver up to the lock.
"Let's go and see your Grandmother."
A/N: edited for grammar mistakes and to update!
~Angel.
