A/N: So, this is a little one-shot I thought up in the car driving back from a pizza restaurant. I didn't really have any Doctor in mind when I wrote it, so pick your favourite and read away. I tried to keep it so it could be told with any doctor but there is a mention of a pair of glasses which I know only 10 and 5 have so maybe you can just imagine your doctor has a pair lying about in his pocket or something.
Sorry if it's a little rushed. Anyway, this is my take on why the Doctor loves tea so much.
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or the BBC and yes I will admit to reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier the famous Cornish writer. I don't own that either. I make know profit from this.
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Crumbling apartments loomed ominously over the dim, narrow lane. Their little lattice windows gaped forlorn, the grey stone of the walls shining in the moonlight. The unkempt buildings cast long murky shadows across the weathered granite stones. High above in the inky black sky hung the Moon, her pale milky light slipped through the tight gap separating the two buildings. Behind her, like little children clamouring not to be forgotten, the stars strained to pear into the disremembered alley.
The small girl who sat on the cold stone pavement below thought she could almost hear them giggle at what they saw. Whether it was the feathery strawberry-blonde hair, slightly limp from earlier rain, or the dark eyes, that had seen so much and yet so little in their short life, that amused them so she had no idea, she didn't normally like to immerse herself in the musings of stars.
She clutched the battered wooden guitar, covered in picked at stamps from many different countries, to her chest a little tighter. She was dressed thinly for such a chilly night in baggy jeans and a long brown coat. Shoved onto her numb feet were her prized bright red wellies, clean of the mud that caked the hem of her trouser legs. The stars giggled.
She sighed irate, although the moment she did so she realised how silly she was being. The stars weren't watching her, weren't laughing at her, they were just stars. Why would the stars be interested in her anyway, she would have thought they would have better things to do with their time, but then again, being a star she guessed that they must have the rest of eternity to do so. Why rush?
A couple of metres away from the busker, leaves started to swirl as if caught in a small hurricane, a wheezing, groaning sound began, reverberating around the alley. It was followed closely by a small box, painted the bluest of blues, materializing out of the shadows cast by the pearly moonlight. A white light glowed brightly on top of the box, the soft shine illuminating the mildew coated walls pressing in from either side.
The girl watched with wide brown eyes as the grating sound of a hidden lock being turned echoed through the darkness and a man calmly stepped out, the golden glow streaming out the double doors behind him caused her large pupils to dilate suddenly, rendering her temporarily blinded. The man closed the blue doors behind him with a quiet click, which, in hindsight, was probably a little anti-climactic. The whole box seemed to hum with energy and life, a dim golden glow emitted from the small obscure glass windows at the top of the doors.
Surprisingly, the girl didn't seemed too panicked by this unexpected arrival, if a little surprised, but then talking to stars does that to one. The odd man smiled broadly at her, as if she were the most amusing thing he'd ever laid eyes upon. The busker mentally winced. The smile was wrong and off, it made her fidget uncomfortably, a bit like when you stroke a cat the wrong way.
Too be fair on the girl the surprise of a man suddenly appearing from what had supposedly been thin air beforehand probably influenced what she said next. In fact the girl didn't quite know what she had said herself before it had passed her lips, "You have very sad eyes." She stated, slightly mournfully, as if this somehow saddened her as well.
The man's smile froze of his lips. He blinked in surprise. "Pardon?" He asked bewildered.
The girl, who was just as confused as he was by this unexpected question, was not, however, one to be deterred. She forged ahead pushing other thoughts as to the man's abnormal appearance to the corner of her mind. "I said, are you alright?" She replied a little louder.
The man stared at her for a long time, unblinking. The girl was beginning to think that he was maybe a bit thick and was regretting the conversation already; she was just about to tell the man to forget it when he opened his mouth and replied.
"Are you? You must be freezing." It was not the answer she had been searching for, but better than nothing she guessed.
She shrugged offhandedly as if it were no big deal. "And you look a little lost. Why?"
"I'm not lost I just don't know where I'm going." He replied confidently throwing the girl off for a moment.
She folded her arms over her chest in the universal fashion of defiance, "Which practically means the same thing if you think about it, the simple definition of lost is not knowing where one is, to not know where one is going one must first not know where one is otherwise it would be easy to figure out the direction your heading." She sat back feeling, if only slightly, pleased with herself.
The man opened and closed his mouth several times at her bossy demeanour, working out a witty retort in his head. The girl was reminded suddenly, and quite pleasantly, of an expression her mother used to use.
"Stop gawking, you look like a fish." She said.
The man closed his mouth; he didn't answer for a moment and the busker worried that she had crossed some invisible line of his. He stared dejectedly down at his scuffed shoes and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Just reminiscing in the past I suppose..." He muttered.
Something inside her seemed to soften at his dejected look and she suddenly felt incredibly old, as if she were no longer the little girl with the battered guitar and red wellies who sat in the dark and talked to stars. She tried to think up a reply or at least some sort of words of comfort for the forlorn looking stranger in front of her, but of course, being as British as she was the first sentence that sprang to mind was…
"Would you like a cup of tea?" She heard her own voice ask, surprising both herself and the man for a second time that night.
The man stared at her as if she'd just suggested that he was coming down with Dutch Elms Disease. "What?" he asked, although the girl knew that he had heard the question.
"Tea?" she repeated holding up a grimy flask.
The man didn't say anything for a moment, and then suddenly, he beamed at her. It was a real proper smile. His white teeth glinted in the moonlight and his warm, friendly eyes stared deep into hers, snuffing out any doubts she'd had before on inviting a stranger to sit with her. Just those deep round orbs seemed to fill her with a warm feeling, as if someone had just lit a fire in her stomach.
They were filled with friendly memories and she suddenly realised why this odd man felt so trustworthy. It was the eyes. In those eyes she could she everything she trusted, her mother humming softly as she washed the plates for dinner, the sea, seen from her bedroom window, whipped white by a merry wind. The dazzling sun, so full of promise and her little crooked house perched precariously on the sea cliff, facing a cobbled square.
"I can never resist a cuppa." He grinned.
Gracefully, he plonked himself down on the cold stones to her left and graciously accepted the tattered plastic cap of the flask. She smiled back at him and fumbled with the catch on the second lid.
"So, what's your name?" Asked the man, still smiling, although the sadness had returned somewhat and was loitering at the back of his big warm eyes. "Stella Lillywhite." She replied, wincing in pain as she chipped her long neat finger nail on the catch.
"Hmm… Stella Lillywhite," said the man as if tasting how the words sounded on his tongue, "What a very interesting and unique name you have, almost fairy tale..."
"Well my father was a very interesting and unique person." Stella replied.
"They're always the best kind." The man grinned at her.
"And you? Who are you then?"
"Oh I'm a nobody really but if you want to put a name to the face then I'm the Doctor." He announced sticking out a hand to her. Stella shook the offered hand but glanced at him sceptically, "The Doctor?" she asked, "Doctor who?"
The Doctor's smile widened, as if she'd just made his day, "Just the Doctor," He said.
"Nobody's name is just 'the Doctor'" Stella informed him.
"Sorry, I don't have another one, well actually that's a lie but let's just stick with 'The Doctor' for now, the other one's a little tricky to pronounce, in fact it's impossible."
Stella thought about this for a moment. She tapped a finger on her lips in what she guessed must be the female equivalent of stoking a beard in thought. "I'll call you Doctor Nobody." She said feeling pretty satisfied with the name.
The Doctor's eyes twinkled, "Doctor Nobody it is then." He said.
The Doctor watched her carefully as she continued her struggle with the flasks catch, it wasn't a particularly tricky thing but Stella's fingers seemed to miss the object completely as she tried to get a grip on it. "Need some help?" He asked, Stella didn't miss the concern in his voice. She flustered slightly and the flask almost dropped from her grip. "No, I'm fine, I can do it." She stammered determinedly, her cheeks going red.
"'Course you can," The Doctor said smiling; "You won't mind if I just have a quick peer into your eyes then do you? Check everything's in working order." Stella hesitated for a moment, but just a moment, before turning her head to face him. He took a small sliver pen like device out of his pocket and buzzed it in her dark eyes. A deep blue bulb lit up on the end, humming softly as the Doctor examined her, the intense blue of the bulb was almost mesmerizing and made her feel slightly sleepy. Just as she was wondering whether it doubled as a rubber like her friend Annie's pen,it suddenly flicked off, snapping her out of the dream like trance.
The Doctor glanced at her, "So Stella, how is your at sight?" he asked shoving the silver pen back into a sizable pocket from his seemingly endless selection. She shrugged, "Everything up close is sort of… fuzzy…" The Doctor nodded slowly then suddenly grinned widely at her. He seemed to like smiling.
"I can fix that." He beamed.
He stuck a hand into another pocket and rummaged about for several seconds before pulling out a pair of rectangular black glasses and handing them to her. "There you go." He said.
Stella slipped on the slim frames. They were a little big, the bridge slipped down her nose easily and the glass was slightly grimy and smeared but Stella treasured them as if they were made of pure gold. "Thank you." She smiled so brightly that she seemed to be emitting a light of her own.
Stella made short work of the second catch after that and poured the warm brown liquid into the Doctor's cap. She watched as he quietly sipped it, savouring its warmth and flavour. They sat in companionable silence, the Doctor sipping his tea, lost in thought, and Stella tightening several strings on her guitar.
Suddenly the Doctor nudged her playfully in the side, "Hey Stella, should've gone to Specsavers." He grinned. Stella giggled at the extremely bad joke, capturing the moment in her memory forever. They were an odd sight; but then, a small girl in red wellies having a cup of tea with an odd looking man down a dark alley next to a bright blue police box would have given anybody a thought to ponder.
"Are you from the stars?" the girl asked suddenly, breaking the silence. "Why?" the Doctor replied, "Do you make a habit of talking to spacemen?"
"But are you?" Stella insisted leaning closer, her eyes bright with excitement, "from the stars I mean." The Doctor sighed heavily and for a moment Stella saw the immense sadness that had entered his eyes before return again with a vengeance. "Aren't we all?" He sighed.
"I'm not." Stella said in confusion.
"To someone out there you are," the Doctor countered, "to the Velangia planet, Earth is just a tiny speck of light in the far distance."
"Who are the Velangia?" Stella asked.
"The Velangians are an extraordinary race from the planet Velangia in the Artic Cosmos." The Doctor explained. "Most amazing people the Velangians, their skin is dyed gold from millions of years of living on a planet with gold dust floating about in the atmosphere, that's what happens when you live next to a jewel cascade. You should see it, utterly brilliant."
"Okay." Stella said quickly and very quietly, so quietly in fact that the Doctor didn't quite hear her. Instead he gazed longingly up at the silent sky, barely visible through the small gap between the two apartments above.
Stella cleared her throat and said a little louder, "Where's your star then Doctor Nobody?"
He did not answer at first, and Stella was aware again of that odd feeling of discomfort, as though she had trespassed on some forbidden ground. She wondered why it was that talk of this home of his should so inevitably silence him.
"My star is gone." He said quietly.
An uncomfortable silence followed and Stella thought, with slight worry, that if she didn't say something soon she would most likely be consumed by it. In the end it was the Doctor who spoke first. "But what about you Stella Lillywhite, who are you?"
"I'm just a girl, a nobody."
The Doctor chuckled faintly, "I used to know a girl called Stella, worked as a police officer at a space terminal on the other side of the galaxy. Met a young man one day and took off with him, now them and their little group hitchhike their way around the universe, always exploring and discovering." The Doctor turned to her, a solemn look replacing the childish excitement in his eyes.
"What I'm saying Stella is that no one is ever a nobody because in the end they always turn out to be a somebody. Every little thing you ever do in your wonderful, brilliant life will influence something. That's what makes you so important."
For a long time Stella said nothing, then she looked him hard in the eyes. "Who are you Doctor Nobody?"
"Boring question, here is a better one, who are you? Are you Stella Lillywhite the little girl in red wellies who carries around a battered guitar covered in stamps from hundreds of different countries, a girl with no home? Or are you Stella Lillywhite the amazing brilliant and downright fantastic girl with a beautiful house by the sea and a loving mother and soon-to-be-stepfather. The girl who ran away from home because she couldn't bear to see her mother marry another."
Stella stared at him in shock, "How did you-."
"It wasn't too hard." The Doctor cut her off, "your nails are clean and manicured and your speech excellent for someone your age. You have a picture of your mother and her fiancé in your pocket but you talk about your father with pride and carry his guitar around with you as if it's somehow a piece of him."
Stella nodded, it made sense. She always felt possessive and unwilling to talk too much about her father. She felt as if he were her own secret property, his memory preserved for her and her alone. She knew this sounded selfish.
She glanced back up at the Doctor and noticed he was again staring forlornly up at the sky, looking a little like he'd lost his way and didn't quite know how to get back on the path to home. He looked so sad and alone that her heart melted for him, her problems seemed like nothing compared to his. At least she had somewhere to go back to, when she got cold or tired and the journey became too rough, but the Doctor's star was gone. He had had nowhere to go, no one to talk to.
"Are you alright?" she asked gently.
"I'm just… so tired." He replied rubbing a hand over his eyes.
Stella suddenly knew what to do. She couldn't be the one to sort out his life; she wasn't the right person to do that. She couldn't tell him that everything would be all right in the end, couldn't bring his star back or make up for any of the mistakes that weighed him down so. She just wasn't the right person. That didn't mean to say she couldn't take some of the load for a while.
"I can fix that." She said softly.
She took the now empty tattered cap from his hand and refilled it for him. She smiled warmly at him as she handed it back, now full of the sweet warm beverage. No, she wasn't the right person for him, but she could be there to offer him a cup of tea and a smile and help him on his way to finding that person.
The Doctor stared at her as he drank his tea from the little plastic thermos lid, the gratitude in his eyes spoke wonders. When he finished and turned to her and said something that she would forever remember and one day tell her own children. "Remember Stella Lillywhite, the pudding is in the eating. Give your mother's boyfriend another chance."
Then he handed her back the plastic cap and told her, "I could take you places Stella, places where gravity is topsy-turvy and birds the size of llamas roam the skies, I could take you to a place where diamonds grow like weeds and grass smells like apples."
Stella shook her head, "One day Doctor Nobody, I'll come with you in your magical blue box, we'll travel the stars together and listen to them sing. I'll run with you Starman. Run so fast and never look back. One day, but not today…"
The Doctor grinned, "Then we better get you home."
Stella did get home, eventually. She arrived in the cobbled square facing her house at exactly 12:42am, a day after she had left. She looked around excitedly as she recognised where she was, then she looked back at the Doctor, who had, up until now, been striding along beside her, her little fingers clutching his, she was not surprised to find that he had vanished. She would see her Starman again one day…
A woman in a bright yellow fluorescent jacket with police printed in big bold letters on the back came striding up to her, demanding to know if she was okay and talking on a radio to someone, telling them that the child had been found.
Stella's mother and her mother's boyfriend Terrance were waiting for her at the house, her mother was in floods of tears while Terrance, pale-faced, talked frantically to people on a mobile phone. When they saw Stella everyone started asking what had happed to her. Her mother ran up and threw her arms around her daughter, abandoning the rather soggy tissue that had been clutched in her trembling fingers.
Stella told them, as truthfully as she could, how she had run away from home and met a strange man with an amazing blue box called Doctor Nobody, but he'd looked sad so she gave him a cup of tea and he'd asked her if she wanted to travel to the stars with him and see a place where people with golden skin walked upside down and rode birds the size of llamas.
They gave her a packet of Refreshers and asked her if the strange man had ridden a motorbike. Stella's mother then promptly burst into a fresh load of tears while Terrance got into a heated argument with the policewoman, telling her he, as a taxpayer, paid her wages, while she told him that she was a taxpayer too and probably paid his wages.
It was only till a lot later did Stella mother ask her where she'd gotten the glasses.
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~RaspberryAngel