Authors note: I marked the Doctor as the tenth one but obviously it isn't really him. It's a different for of the Doctor, a separate regeneration. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

I stood on my front lawn, staring at the approaching dusk, that familiar feel of a cigarette in my fingers rinsing me with a fresh wave of guilt. I took a drag and held it in my lungs until I needed to take a new breath and watched the smoke swirl away. As the smoke curled into the sky I heard a noise like house keys on piano wire coming from a little ways down my street. My head swiveled sharply towards the noise, and my eyes started telling my brain things that it refused to believe.

"God no… That's impossible…" I muttered as a man stepped out of the noise maker. He wandered around the great blue box, muttering things, and then started to jog with a purpose up the street. By the time he had reached me I could tell it was less a jog with purpose and more a confused hysteria, as if he had lost something.

Still in complete and utter shock I decided to speak, "Um… Excuse me?" upon hearing my voice he turned and stared wide eyed at me as if he thought no one had been watching, "Can I help you find something?"

He strode up to me and looked at my face like a curious monkey, his nose just inches from mine. I flinched. He took a step back and then circled me, inspecting every angle, "Perhaps… Yes! Excellent! Brilliant really! Could I borrow your cigarette for a moment?"

I had completely forgotten I had been smoking and looked down at the half smoked cigarette, half of which had turned to ash. I flicked the extra ash off and cautiously handed it to the strange man, still trying to fit the pieces together in my head. He took it in his graceful hands and looked it over for a few seconds. He studied it with great intensity, sniffed the filter, and then flicked it into the street with a look of mild disgust.

"I never did like those things."

I stared at him incredulously and swallowed the urge to swear at him in seven different languages. Instead I steadied my demeanor, and through clenched teeth asked, "What was that for."

"If you're going to help me I'm going to need you at your strongest, not wheezing your way up the street."

At that moment all of the fragments of the events of the last few moments suddenly fell together. Suddenly I knew who he was, "I know you," I whispered and then with a giddy screech, "I know that box! You're the Do-"

"Hush!" his hands where over my mouth in an instant and his lips breathed warm air into my ears. My eyes shifted to look at him and grew two sizes at the seriousness in his voice, "I know who I am, you know who I am… No one else needs to know."

When his hands finally removed themselves from my face, my mouth unwillingly started running at a million miles a minute, "I've seen your TV show! You're amazing! Is it really bigger on the inside?"

"What about 'hush' do you not understand?"

"But… you're real! Like really real!"

"Yup…" he pulled at the skin on his face and then let it snap back into place, "I'm real."

I let my mouth fall open. My mind had been blown to pieces and I was hurriedly trying to glue it back together, "So… Is all of it true? Like everything on TV?"

"Some yes, some no," he paused and ran his hand though gorgeous ginger hair, "You can't believe everything you see on the telly…"

"You even have the accent!" I was then painfully aware of how American I must sound to him.

He looked at me with an amused sort of face that only a parent of a five year old would be able to muster, "So do you want to help me or not?"

I nodded enthusiastically and grinned like an idiot as I awaited his instructions.

"All I need you to do is wake up… wake up!"

"Wake up honey."

I sleepily opened my eyes and gazed at my mother. My dream was over, my hopes were crushed. I rolled out of bed with a depressed sigh and started my morning routine.