After a short walk home from the bus stop, Ayra had reached the front door of her mother's townhouse. After unlocking it, she threw her worn-out messenger bag next to the pile of shoes and peeled off her leather jacket and threw it on top. It was a beautiful autumn day, and on most days like this, Ayra would be out walking around her 22nd century urban Toronto neighborhood, admiring the old buildings and peering through shop windows to see if there was anything new worth buying, but for some odd reason, she didn't feel like going for a stroll today. Maybe it was the math test she had done a mere hour ago, maybe it was something in the air, even Ayra herself couldn't pinpoint it. Instead, she promptly plopped herself on the couch, took of her grey boots and reached for the TV remote. She browsed through all the channels, but there was nothing entertaining on. She sighed deeply and closed her eyes. For the first time in ages, Ayra was bored. She fell back onto a fluffy decoration pillow, causing her mane of dark blonde curls to fly and land directly in her face. She fidgeted until she was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling, and then pushed her hair off of her face, creating a fan of bushy curls around her head. She laid there for a couple of minutes, wondering what she could do to erase this boredom of hers. She peeked at her watch. 3:52 pm. Another 2 hours until Mom got home. She got up and walked into the kitchen, grabbed a tangerine from the bowl of fruit on the island and then sat down on one of its surrounding stools. She had only eaten 2 pieces when an idea sprung into her mind.
"But what if Mum finds out?" she thought to herself, toying with it the possibility "What if I'm not back before she is? She hates it when I leave unannounced."
Ayra finished off the remaining pieces while she contemplated her idea. She decided to give it a try, but she'd have to have some kind of backup plan, worst case scenario. After all, things wouldn't be there if they weren't worth trying just once, right?
She pushed the stool back under the kitchen island and headed upstairs towards her bedroom. After a quick change into cargos and a white t-shirt, and tying her large curls up into a messy bun, she put on her boots and jacket and walked up to her mother's bedroom. She gently pushed the door open, revealing a large room with a bed at the back adorned with the bluest bed linens. The fading daylight peeked through the white curtains, casting shadows one the dark wood floors. Ayra crossed the room to her mother's right bedside table and opened its drawer. She shuffled through the pictures of her as a baby, her mum and dad on holiday and her grandparents next to the tree on Christmas morning. She looked under the books, through a cacophony of pens, hair ties and bobby pins, even in her mother's infamous blue diary, hoping maybe it would be hidden within its folds, but no such luck came to her. She walked around to the other table but, again, was met with the same result. As Ayra searched throughout her mother's room, looking in closets and drawers, she kept hitting dead ends.
Just as she was about to leave, something caught her eye. The bottom right corner of her mother's mattress was slightly more elevated than the rest of the bed. Having far too much curiosity for her own good thanks to her father's genes, she kneeled beside the bed, lifted the mattress and found exactly what she was looking for.
"Finally" She murmured to herself.
She pulled her finding out from between the mattress and box spring and strapped it onto her wrist, standing back up in the process.
"Who knew a vortex manipulator could take so long to find?" She thought, slightly annoyed at the 40 minutes it took looking for the gadget.
She returned to her room and opened her dresser's top drawer. She pulled out her sonic screwdriver, hot pink and a gift given to her from her father on her 16th birthday.
Such a great day that was; having her parents both in the same place at the same time despite the squiggly timelines. She loved that, at least once, they were all in the same place together. She cherished these moments, knowing they didn't happen often.
She placed the sonic in her jacket pocket and lifted her arm, pushing her sleeve back to reveal the vortex manipulator's screen. Her mother never showed her how to use it (and Ayra had never seen her mother use it anyways) so she punched in some random numbers frantically, hoping she'd end up somewhere peaceful and nice when she pressed the "Transport" button, perhaps even somewhere tropical where she could go for a relaxing swim. Fingers crossed, she took a deep breath and hit the button, disappearing in a cloud of smoke and electricity.
...
Feeling her feet on solid ground, and her body not freezing nor burning to death, Ayra opened her eyes. She looked around the room and recognized her surroundings almost immediately.
She was in her father's study, in the TARDIS. She let out the deep breath she had taken in seconds before and relaxed all of the tension in her body. She peeked her head out of the door, and upon seeing the corridors of the TARDIS, was instantly relieved knowing she could get to the console room in one piece and get back home (Her dad had only given her a few lessons, but she had a good idea of how to do it).
As she approached the staircase, her pace slowed to a creep. She wanted to make sure that there was no one to scare or whose timeline she would alter, so she was careful with every step she took. She walked up to the opening at the top of the staircase and poked her head out to see if anyone was at the console. Luckily, Ayra saw no one and began to creep down the stairs. She'd made it down all but one step before she slipped on the last and landed (luckily on both feet) with a loud bang onto the metal landing.
"Damn these lanky legs." She muttered silently as she regained her balance.
Just as Ayra was about to continue her way down the stairs, someone appeared from behind the console, wielding some kind of firearm. As the figure moved in closer, she realized who it was.
It was her mother, River, and her plasma gun was pointed right in Ayra's direction.
It was then that she realized that she hadn't travelled to some other place, but clearly, some other time, and this was a time where her own mother didn't even know her yet.
"Who's there? Don't you dare move or I'll shoot!"
Ayra reached into her jacket pocket in a panic, grabbing her sonic and pointing it at the vortex manipulator, as River steadied her gun with her other hand and moved closer. She pressed the sonic's button, hoping it would return her back home, but very much to her dismay, the manipulator exploded and sent a few sparks towards her hair, slightly singeing a couple hanging curls of hers and causing her to shriek.
"That's it, now I've really done it!" she thought to herself as she pressed her sonic's button a few more times hoping some kind of miracle would happen. Instead, she was met by River's loud voice again as she barked "I said don't move!" and her quickly approaching figure.
Ayra, seeing no other way out, replaced the sonic in her jacket pocket.
"Shit." She whimpered in fear, as she raised her arms up like a criminal caught in the act. She felt her stomach churn, turning her butterflies of excitement into stampeding rhinos of nervousness.
River quickly ran up the stairs, plasma gun still aimed at Ayra, and stopped just a few steps below her, taking a strong stance.
"Who are you and how the hell did you get in here?" she said, lowering one arm to her side. Ayra had begun to shake slightly and bite her lower lip when, finally, she burst out her alibi.
"I really didn't mean to do any harm, I swear! I was just really bored and there was nothing on but crap telly and I wasn't in the mood for a walk or a bike ride so I thought you probably wouldn't mind if I used your manipulator just once, so I kind of borrowed it from you but then I tried to go back home using my sonic because I was scared you'd ground me or something, but that just blew up the manipulator and burned my hair and I'm really, really, really, really, really sorry and I won't do it again!" she blurted out, her nerves speaking for her rather than her brain.
"What?" replied a very confused River, pausing a few seconds before speaking to digest Ayra's outburst.
"I said I was bored and I just-"
"No, no, I get that part, but how in god's name did you get my manipulator? I don't exactly leave it lying around. And you still haven't answered my previous question; who are you?"
Suddenly a tip from her mother returned to Ayra's mind.
If you don't know where or when you are and someone asks you about yourself, just answer with "Spoilers", even if that someone is your father or myself. You don't want anyone's timeline altered by you and you can't let them know about their future because it might end up changing things for the worse, so just say it when things like that happen. Trust me, it works every time.
In compliance with her mother's wishes, Ayra said it.
"Um, spoilers?"