"Where to now?" He breathed.
"Huh", I gasped for air, "I hadn't really thought about what would happen now!"
He chuckled, "Well, at least we're still alive".
I sighed. A week into my adventure with the doctor and already we'd nearly died... Twelve times? Sounds about right.
*** BACK TO WHEN THEY FIRST MET***
There was a tap on my window. 'Odd' I thought 'for two in the morning'. I pulled the blankets back up to my chin and buried my head in the pillows.
But there it goes again *tap tap tap* pause *tap tap tap*. I kicked my blankets off angrily and spun around to face the window, yanking back the curtain as I did so. There before me stood a strange looking man in a blue suit and an overcoat, his hair dishevelled and his face flushed. The collar of his coat was turned up against the gale force winds howling outside.
His eyes looked right past me, searching through my room, "who the hell are you?" I yelled through the glass.
He put a finger to his lips and opened his mouth as if to speak, but instead his breath fogged up the glass and he wrote 'sssh' and pointed behind me. I turned around to see a black puddle of what could only be described as ooze bubbling in my doorway.
"Open the window", he said, his voice was barely audible through the glass.
I flicked my gaze from the man, to the ooze and back to the man. I rested my finger on the latch on my window. 'Hold up!' I thought 'What do you think you're doing?! Who is this guy?' I snatched my hand away from the lock.
"Charlotte! Open the window!" He yelled.
"Who the hell are you!" I yelled back.
He ran his hands through his hair and stepped back from the window.
I turned back to the ooze in the doorway, only it no longer just occupied the doorway, half of my bedroom floor was being consumed by this sludge and it had begun slithering up the walls.
*SMASH*
I jumped backwards at the noise and spun around to the window to see the man standing in the window gram, his coat wrapped around his hand and a fire extinguisher in the other.
"I'll fix that, promise!" He beamed, jumping down from his perch onto my bed and then down onto the floor. His ratty converse shoes leaving a muddy footprint in his wake, "That too!"
He bent down the the ooze and put his nose to it, taking a deep breath, "Ah! As expected!"
He pulled the pin from the extinguisher and clamped his fingers down around the trigger, sending foam spraying out all over the ooze. It let out a horrific shriek, from god knows where, an shrivelled up into a black, tar-like substance the size of a coin.
"Ha! How about that! Fifty-fifty chance that was even gonna work!" He picked up the black thing and tossed it up, caught it and buried it in his pocket, "Hi! I'm the Doctor! You probably don't remember me, but we've met before!" He turned around and held out his hand to shake mine.
I stretched out my arm and took his hand it my grip, "Uh, hi. Doctor Who exactly?"
"Oh, Just 'The Doctor'"
"Sounds ominous. Okay, just 'The Doctor' What're you doing in my house? In my bedroom? At two in the morning?" I took a deep breath and squeaked, "And what the hell was that thing?"
"You've got a loud voice and a lot of questions for two in the morning".
"You're damn right I do!"
"Nice pyjamas", he grinned, pointing down at me.
I'd forgotten that the Australian equivalent for pyjamas in summer was a singlet and underwear.
"I'm going to punch you", I muttered, "Really hard", I pulled my singlet down to cover myself a little more.
"Oh! Well, if that's the case, no answers, no fixing things, I'll just be off then!" He pouted a little and stomps toward the window.
"Stop! Please? Tell me what just happened?"
He smiled and jumped onto the bed, crossing his legs beneath him. I scooped up a pair of shorts from the floor and stepped into them before crouching on the bed next to him, folding my hands in my lap an waiting for the doctor to begin.
That's when it all came out. The life The Doctor lives. The fights he's won. The evil that's out there and the good that beats it. The vastness of the universe and the emptiness of his TARDIS.
"I've been travelling alone for quite sometime now, Charlotte, and I was just wondering..." He began.
"Hold on just a second!" I interrupted, "You said we'd met before, that's how you know my name I take it. When did we meet?"
"Oh! You wouldn't remember. You were very young, about eight months old I believe. You told me that you liked the name Charlotte better than the name Carol, which is what your parents originally named you, I convinced them otherwise. So, you became Charlotte and I saved your parents from a giant, green, slimey thing in their attic!"
"Oh, yes! Obviously!" I shook my head at how calmly he spoke of these things, "Well thank goodness you convinced then otherwise! Carol's a horrible name!" I laughed and he chuckled along with me.
"Anyways, like I was saying before, I've been travelling alone for a while an I could use some company. So, Charlotte 'Not Carol' Blighte, would you like to come with me?" He took hold of my hand and leaned in close.
"Come with you where?" I whispered.
"Out there!" He burst, letting go of my hand and jumping upright onto the bed, "Anywhere you want to go, anytime you want to go there!"
"Seriously?" I gasped. Yeah, sure, there was an eighty per cent chance that this guy was a whack job, but he just saves my life, I could at least indulge his fantasies for a little while. Plus, he was adorable.
*** BACK TO REAL TIME***
So, here we were. Clinging to anything we could in the TARDIS while we drifted through space with the unanswered question hanging in the empty air between us, 'Where to next?'
"What's it like?" I asked.
"Beg yours?" He looked at me, confused.
"What's it like being able to see everything. Like, everything that was, is, could be and what never should be?"
His usually bright expression dropped away from his face. His eyes went glassy from the tears building up in them.
"I-I'm sorry", I stammered, "You don't have to tell me if its too hard or anything".
He didn't say anything for a few minutes we just stood there listening to the sound of the TARDIS whirring around us. It was the longest I'd ever not heard The Doctor talk. I took a step towards him, gauging if it was okay to go any closer or if he's lash out.
"It's terrifying. And beautiful. But mostly terrifying".
That was all he said. I couldn't get him to say anymore for the next few hours. The silence was deafening.
"So, we were on our way to somewhere?" I said, cutting into the tension.
"Ah! Yes! Where? That's the question isn't it?" He began mashing buttons and slamming down levers as e danced around the controls of his TARDIS.
I rested my hand on the lever that I was instructed to pull just as we landed each time.
The TARDIS thumped onto the ground and I yanked the lever down as I was shown. The Doctor pulled a hammer from a crevice in the control panels and hit a button, making a peculiar *twoing!* noise.
"Ah-ha!" He sighed, "Wheres here?" He asked himself, "Where indeed!"
A spark erupted from the heart of the TARDIS, followed by some thick black smoke billowing out.
"No! Not now baby! Anytime but now!" He caressed a button and the glass tube that protruded from the roof off the TARDIS.
"What's going on?" I put my hand back on the lever.
"She needs recharging" I could've sworn we stopped back..." He trailed off as he walked down one of the corridors opposite the door of the TARDIS.
He came bouncing back down a separate corridor holding a thick piece of metal shaped like a pencil, "Oh that's wizard!" He shouted.
"What?" I asked, amused that he was so thrilled at this small piece of metal.
"That's wizard? It's a saying, I say it quite a bit actually, not nearly enough though. I-"
"No", I cut him off, "What's with the metal stick?"
His attention turned back to the thing in his hand, "Oh this!" He beamed, "This is my sonic screw driver! I thought I'd lost it! Turns out I was using it as a bookmark! Have you seen the library yet? It's quite brilliant, actually!" His mind began to wander again, I'd already discovered my hidden talent of tuning out when The Doctor started rambling.
I placed myself on the lounge, or what was his equivalent of a lounge, which was in fact the back seat of a car and cast my eyes over the TARDIS once more. It was more magnificent than he he had ever made it out to be.
"Come on Sexy!" He shouted and my attention flicked back to him, "Oh, uh, sorry! Inside joke" He winked.
I rolled my eyes and went to fix my mind on the TARDIS again before he grabbed my had and pulled me upright, "C'mon! We're off to see where the old girls taken us!"
He kept hold of my had as he burst out the door, wincing at the sunlight.
