Will We Meet Again?

"If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave." It wasn't that easy. It never could be. Could it? Fiona finds herself numb as she lives life on a broken record. That is until a man walks into her life and claims to know things about her that he couldn't possibly know, and before she knows it, she gets thrown into the life of an all too familiar time-lord.

Rated T. Might go up to M. Doctor/OC. 1/13 Doctors.

Entry no. 1

Longing

(n.) A strong feeling of need or desire for someone or something. An unfulfilled desire, even if it is a need you do not yet know.

"Ma'am, are you alright?"

I flinched, every muscle in my body jolting as I was torn from the story in my head.

A young waitress, not much older than I was, was stood a little ways away, watching me with scrutinizing eyes.

She gave me this funny look, her gaze drifting to her fellow employees, as though they were all mentally taking bets on whether I'd get up and jump her for even trying to talk to me.

Oh? What's this?

Seemingly just someone else in the long line of strangers I had managed to scare with the permanent, insistant, resting scowl on my face.

I sighed internally.

It seemed as though I had zoned out, for like the fifth-hundredth time this week. My brain felt like a hive with a billion empty thoughts buzzing around like bees. It was like I couldn't concentrate on a single thing lately.

From above, the gulls were mocking me with their ability to fly, filling the air with the beating of wings and bird cries. The scent of sea salt and coffee were strong in the air.

My eyes strayed back to the concrete floor – back to the increasingly annoyed looking lady. A nasty frown of irritation was messing up her pretty features, pink lips down-turned and slim eyebrows arched, like she'd rather be doing anything else.

Wow, I think I'd rather be pecked to death by a flock of seagulls than deal with this chick.

"I'm fine, sorry," I coughed a response, my eyes shifting all over the place - as if I could literally find an answer in front of me that didn't make me look bat-shit crazy. I guessed that her manager had probably forced her to go talk to the creepy teen that had sat scarily still ever since she'd sat down.

My fingers anxiously toyed with the yellowed paper of the book I'd been neglecting for the past half hour, trying to read but just not being able to. I had only been fifteen minutes into the book when my mind decided to make a run for it – refusing to digest another paragraph.

Instead, I had delved into spinning up a tale about misunderstood dragons, strong princesses, bizarre wizards and knights who really just wanted to sleep with all the other knights.

The usual really.

I heaved a heavy sigh as the waitress from earlier waded over to some other tables – not looking half as convinced of my mental sanity as I would have wished.

I couldn't blame her, to be honest, I was on the same boat. If I saw someone sitting by themselves, staring intensely at their cup of coffee for like an hour, I'd be creeped out too.

I was more than annoyed with myself at this point.

It wasn't like me to lose myself like this – not giving the slightest bit of attention to the world around me. I always paid due attention to my surroundings – to the smallest things. As one normally learnt to do when they didn't have as many people to rely on.

I tsked.

It was like there was a change in the air.

Something just didn't feel right.

Maybe it was the caffeine, sending me into some weird psychosis.

I closed my eyes and mentally berated myself for how odd I was being. I turned back to the sky, returning to the fantasy story I was planning out in my head – keeping a subconscious eye on the way my face looked as I did, so as to not look vaguely murderous as I disappeared.

It's not like I was missing out on much with this book anyway – the cover gave innocent me-from-this-morning an idea of a spooky thriller of sorts. I was a sucker for a scare, after all. But alas, I was betrayed by the deceit of phony advertising.

It was all a ruse to surround some bleeding-heart romance.

I didn't typically mind that sort of thing, as long as the story said something worthwhile.

Romance could do that, I'm sure? I mean, I'd yet to see it, but surely?

It made sense for me I suppose, I'd never been one to easily believe in anything unless it took me by the shoulders and shook me to prove its existence – that's why the fictional setting of a haunted house was so much more fun to read about than actually expecting to see a ghost.

Love, to me, fell along similar lines. I had never before felt the punch of it, the kind that every author and their mum wrote about. Therefore, it was just as much a reality as the unicorn-squid hybrid I had for an imaginary best friend when I was 10.

Stories and Music.

They had always served as my place of sanctuary. From before I could even remember - I could lose myself in thoughts of them for hours on end.

Daring dashes through distant worlds, characters running for their lives through cavernous mazes from overpowered beasties, swordfights while all the rest of world could do was watch.

'Adventure' was a word I liked very much, after all.

Adventure. Ha. As if you even knew the meaning of the word, you phony. I hardly did anything exciting on my own.

The only thing I knew about it was an idea. A construct. A cheap dollar store discount version of the real deal.

I knew, in part, what it was supposed to feel like. That rush of freedom that left you feeling oh so alive. But I only ever saw it when I could pour over page after page – transport myself to another reality.

It wasn't much, because at the end a small part of you is always left wanting a tiny bit more — but it would be enough for me.

And yet still, like a mooning idiot, I longed.

Wendy Darling, Alice Liddel, Dorothy Gale – Girls turned heroine's – who were all given a taste of what true adventure was. They were ordinary too once, but then off they went to be a part of something bigger.

All I could do was follow them with a yearning heart.

No less than two minutes after that thought, the soft buzzing of my phone forced me to abandon the journey I was going to set sail on in my head.

I groaned internally, checking to see who'd messaged me — it wasn't like I was all that much of a socialite.

My eyes roved over the words – the feeling of freedom being replaced by the sensation of a dull pain, beginning to flare in my chest.

I was needed back home.

I grimaced, ignoring the pain and ignoring the message.

She needed to learn how to pick up after herself, I agreed to myself solemnly.

And plus, I had places to be.

I warded away any lingering thoughts of her, and gathered up my things once I realised my lunch break was over. I couldn't help but snort when I saw the worker behind the register literally sigh in relief as I got up.

And here I thought we had really hit it off.

There wasn't a doubt in my mind that I was anything other than the talk of the town around these parts – well, talk of the café really. I couldn't blame them, though. Someone like me - dressed head-to-toe in black, with red, splotchy eyes from a full night's worth of reading and giving the appearance of an actual serial-killer – probably wouldn't be the 'best image' for promoting their shop.

I let my own sigh fall as I neared the door, trying to ignore the itchy feeling in my mouth from that coffee from before. It was somewhat burnt.

Well, that was a nice little outing and all, but I don't think coffee shops are my 'thing' – I considered with one boot out the door, knowing I'd soon be investing some money towards my own coffee maker.

Wake up. Get ready. Go to work. Come home. Eat. Waste my time staring at a screen. Sleep.

That was the vicious cycle that my life had stayed stuck in for almost a year now – I was living like a goddamn 'Sims' character.

Ever since we scrounged together enough money to move all the way out to the astonishingly ordinary suburbs of San Francisco, I suppose I just didn't really fit in.

It was absurd really. I had just turned eighteen. I was an adult now. Well, adult-ish.

Regardless, I was at that age where I was supposed to be living it up – going to parties, making out with other party-goers, and doing crazy reckless, life-endangering things. Whatever it was that the youths do.

And yet here I was. Working a nine-to-five job, with no social life in sight.

It seemed so weird to think about now, the reasons why I ended up the way I did – almost like I was thinking about the life of someone else entirely. All my life I'd been sheltered from the rest of the world, growing up surrounded by the same people I'd known since I was born.

We weren't the most well-off family back home - having to live on scraps - but it never bothered me all that much.

I was a kid then, and that's all I had to be.

And then we moved.

It felt like an understatement to say that my tiny child brain was chewed up and tossed around by the absolutely staggering difference compared to where I lived before.

Pakistan, a land literally set 10 years in the past – where I still owned a VCR, watched MTV, and listened to music on tapes. It was like a sharp slap to the face - moving somewhere so foreign.

But by now, having lived in the states for almost two years, I was more accustomed to life in America. It took quite a lot of getting used to, but I'd always been good at acclimating.

I guess I just wished that I'd appreciated life when it was simpler.

I stepped up to a set of familiar tiles outlining a stretch of pavement.

The door cranked open after a bit of wiggling the key – and, like wildfire, the sweet, familiar musk of books spread to my nose.

A little smile played on my lips, just as it always did when my eyes roved past shelf after shelf.

The shop was getting a bit small for all the books I managed to acquire – but it was mine, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.

It was an amazing set-up I coped with creating – People would come and drop off books they no longer needed and would get payed a small bit for each one, and then they'd get sold for more based on quality. It was San-Francisco and people were moving in and out all the time, it was no wonder my little corner-stop shop managed to do so well.

And I could remember the day I first saw it. This small, already shabby little place, with mix-matched walls and a suspiciously slanted cieling. I had thrown most of our savings into it on that very day, crossing all my toes that it would make us some money. The alternative, if it was an otherwise bad move, would've been to be kicked out onto the streets.

But would you look at it now. The bookshelves seemed like they would collapse any moment under the pressure of the numerous books and files stuffed into them. Each one with a label, organised in neat rows on the shelves, after many late nights spent here doing just that. All four walls of the room were covered with shelves and filing cabinets, leaving only a small gap in the middle for the door. I ran the tips of my fingers over the bound leather cases, each one either cracked and dry with age, or crisp and new - sold to me due to the regret of a hasty purchase.

The thin volumes smelt faintly of pipe tobacco and dust from previous owners - or maybe that's just what the paper pages grew to smell like with age.

I yawned, enjoying the comfort of it all before realising I'd just proven my own point. My life amounted to this painfully standard job with no room for anything exciting to ever happen.

Keep this up and you'll be stuck here for the rest of your life, one part of me tried to argue.

I frowned at my stupidly persistent brain, internally telling it to stop being so mean.

I reached my counter and set my bag down. I only stopped when I heard something weird, to say the least.

Like awfully weird.

Like a film editor had just added in a real life sound-bite to a situation that was way too domestic.

It was a sort of faint buzzing?

What's weirder was that it was right outside the door to the shop.

It was a quite morning, with the only other sounds in the room being the steady clicking of my shoes, and the creaking of wooden floorboards. So you can really see what had my gander.

With an eyebrow quirked with interest, I waded back to the closed door – absentmindedly turning the sign from 'closed' to 'open'.

The sound was louder near the front and I could make it out to be a distinct metallic hum – like something straight out of Star Trek.

Curiouser and curiouser.

There was a faint voice at the back of my head that was telling me I had heard the noise before, but I soon dismissed it, creaking open the door. The light summer breeze tickled my nose as I poked my head outside.

No one and nothing odd in sight – Hm, I don't know what I was expecting.

With a small smidge of disappointment, I was about to head back in when I saw that the hanging sign to the shop was all messed up. Groaning in annoyance I extracted myself from the shop and onto the road.

Weird, it never did that on its own – I mused, thinking over the situation and marking it down as strange.

They were two thick knotted ropes that held the sign, hardly ever moving.

What made it especially strange was that the wind was soft and gentle today, like a feathery kiss – making me rule the weather out as an unlikely suspect.

I had just gotten started on untying the knot in the rope that held the sign, when I was abruptly pulled out of my task – knocking shoulders with a man that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

A tall figure, dressed too weirdly for the summer, was all I saw before I turned around.

"Watch where you're going, buddy," I grimaced, thrown by the harshness of the bump.

Before the first words found their target though, the flaps of what could've been a tan trench coat had already disappeared.

I was no less than stunned silent by the sudden disappearance of the mystery man, turning my head around frantically to find him, but only seeing empty streets.

"Okay, definitely strange," I mumbled under my breath, weirdly freaked out. He would have had to have bolted to have gotten out of sight so fast, but even then, I wasn't denying the absurdity of it.

My heartbeat had picked up greatly and my vision seemed to blur for a second before I placed my hand over my chest to calm myself down.

In my shock, I found myself chuckling lightly.

"Oh my god, I'm so soft. Grow a pair, Fiona," I whispered under my breath, my eyes darting around to see if anyone had caught the embarrassing display.

I could be so feint-hearted at times, it baffled me. A random passerby knocked into me, so what?

I remembered all the times my cousins would play pranks on me as a child, never letting me in on their games all because I was the way I was. Soft, small and weak.

I'd been for as long as I could remember.

But it wasn't like that was something to be ashamed of. A bitter kind of anger started flowing through me at the thought.

When did I just start accepting that I was feeble? They did say the shorter you were, the closer you were to hell, right? I should be radiating power with a single bat of my lashes.

I was so sick of it – I didn't want to be soft anymore. I wanted to be bloody knuckles and glass shards. I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me.

With a new sense of empowerment, I rushed back inside – determined to prove something.

It was getting close to midday and all the sense of motivation I had seemed to seep out and dissipate when the last person of the day walked out.

My sigh unfurled like a steam-train that had been shut off after a hard day's work, virtually filling the emptiness of the shop as I crumpled to a heap on the register.

"I could do it, I could fall asleep right now," I tempted myself, wanting nothing more than to just fall into a two week coma.

"Though, best not."

I dragged myself up - rubbing the sleep dust from my eyes.

I needed to get to the front door, almost forgetting that first priority was to turn the sign to 'close' before I could relax. How could I have been so foolish to have forgotten – this was a matter of life and death.

That's when a soft jingle made me grimace.

I was just a foot away from the sign with my arm stretched out, and someone had to come in now?

"Sorry, were you about to close?"

It was a woman, quite a bit taller than me. She was English too, I noted – quite odd to see around here, but I didn't take it into mind.

She had a crudely cut mop of pale blonde hair that seemed to stick out and trail like the flickers of a flame. The roots of her hair matched the light hazel of her eyes as she fixed me with a downright perturbing stare.

She was looking at me so deeply, I was scared I'd have to dash back and get the can of pepper spray hidden in my purse. You know, you can never tell with people these days – and I'd rather be safe than sorry.

I smiled at her apologetically, but there was no doubt she didn't see the agonising pain in my eyes.

This shop was open eight freaking hours a day, and she had to choose now?

"Yeah I was, but no worries," I grinned at her weakly, moving back to stand behind the register – taking on the accepted standard of discourse you do to make sure customers don't sue you. "You're good if you don't take too long."

She flashed me a confident smile, almost as though she were accepting a challenge.

"I'll make sure not to."

I watched her as she moved over to a shelf as she began roving through book titles.

There was something about her that seemed a bit off, if I was being honest. Something a tiny bit unusual, in an impossibly intriguing way.

She looked like if someone from the future and a pirate had a baby - with her long flowing coat, boots, billowy trousers - and to top it all off, rainbow suspenders.

Shaking my head, I decided to leave her be – we had plenty of interesting characters come around in the past.

But before I could even begin starting to dawdle and mess about, I heard the thump of a singular book being placed on the counter.

There's no way...

I looked up and was face-to-face with the cockiest smirk I had ever seen.

All I could do was stare gapingly at the woman.

That was less than a minute – in a shop with like, a thousand books. Was she related to the Flash, or something?

Unless she already knew where the book she wanted was... But that would've been impossible, I would've remembered seeing someone like her.

Collecting myself, I gave her an apologetic smile and scooped up her book, ready to scan.

"'Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World'. That's quite the purchase," I said, smiling down at the book. It was in quite good condition for being in a second-hand shop. I couldn't understand though, the urgency with which she tore through the shop for this one particular book.

I looked back up at her through my eyelashes, "A fan of science?"

Her eyes met mine and she seemed slightly caught off-guard at the sound of my voice - like she didn't think I'd strike up a conversation with her for whatever reason. Her expression changed to slightly flustered as she stuck her arms behind her back. Her voice was a soft drawl, a tiny bit difficult to understand - my thoughts wondered if it was from the North of wherever she was from - as she replied, "Yes, I am a fan. I never thought I would've needed this particular book, though."

"Oh? And why's that?" I tilted my head at her – an action she seemed to catch on to and gawk at.

The way she's looking at me, I could swear it was like she knew me – even though I couldn't recall a time when we'd have met. I held out her purchase to her, the book now being wrapped in brown parchment and placed in a bag.

Her smile that had settled into a calm one, abruptly changed back into a proud smirk as she fluttered her eyelashes.

"Because my dear, one day, I'm going to be in it. Thank you for the book."

And with that, she turned heel and began strutting to the exit. Before she left however, she turned at the door to look at me again. "By the way, don't think you've noticed - but there's something hanging from your pocket."

And with that, hilariously, she turned the door's sign to face 'closed' - leaving with the soft slamming of the door.

As she left, I was even more flabbergasted to find myself smiling a bit manically after her retreating form.

"My god, that woman was a bit of a whirlwind, wasn't she?" I asked the empty shop, roping myself in from the shock. It would've been nice to get more customers like her, if anything to provide a break from the balding book connoisseurs and the soccer moms that hung around the food and gardening sections.

I found myself hoping we'd run into each other again some day.

I pawed at my aprons pocket before my pinky caught onto a small scroll of paper.

"I swear to god, if this is her number..."

I unfurled the tiny sheet and wondered what it was in silent anticipation. However, the cheery mood seemed to almost get sucked out of the air as my eyes skimmed over the words.

'Have your most prized possessions with you by eight tonight - only the things you love more than anything. They're the only things you'll need. Read this and trust me.'

It was my hand-writing. My exact hand-writing.

I didn't know how to react. My stomach twisted uncomfortably and I felt like gagging.

The handwriting was way too similar to mine to be forged. Did that woman do this? No, she never got close enough to me to slip something in my pocket – and besides, I had my eyes on her the whole time she was in here.

Then where-

My mind flashed back to the incident outside the shop today. The man? Could he have? I never even caught what he looked like.

Regardless of who it was, 'what it meant' seemed like the better question. Was it a threat? It didn't feel like it though.

For the first time since I bought it, I felt weirdly out of place, alone in the confines of my shop. It was like the walls were closing in on me.

Deciding, to just walk and ease my mind– I grabbed my bag and walked out the door, almost in a haze.

Walking down the busy city streets on my way home was always an excellent distraction when I needed it. The most interesting types of people, from all walks of life seemed to gravitate towards the streets lined with skyscrapers.

Even at night, writers and artists were perched in their homey, rustic seats outside coffee shops, photographers and architects scaled the streets in search of interesting sites to scope out, even the dancers and musicians couldn't resist the urge to settle down on the edge of a sidewalk and hold a tiny concert, free of charge for the hundreds of people passing by.

But now, all I could see them as were threats.

My head was still spiralling from the note, but what was worse than the way I felt was that I didn't know if whoever wrote it was watching me or not.

These things don't just happen, especially to me.

I took refuge on a bench that looked out over a tiny portion of the Pacific Ocean, while I kept scratching at theories to what the note meant. It might just be a prank, but what would anyone gain from pranking me.

Thump-thump-thump-thump, my heart was pounding in my ears.

I was starting to lose myself when a sweet melody tore through my headache.

"You taught me the courage of stars before you left. How light carries on endlessly, even after death. With shortness of breath, you explained the infinite. How rare and beautiful it is to even exist."

A piano and a violin, working together beautifully, intermingled like sheets of velvet.

The singer's voice was soft and fragile, like the most delicate kind of flower. It was almost other-worldly.

In the span of a second, my attention was immediately captured and my stress rolled off in waves. It wasn't every day a song could feel so... specific.

It was strange but it was like the song was meant for me – like I had listened to it in another life.

No, cease that thought, you idiot.

The last time I had checked, my name wasn't Truman and I couldn't remember ever living a perfect vanilla life in a fantasy land where all my dreams came true.

There was no way in hell I deserved to feel as vulnerable as I did now, but for some reason I felt it. From somewhere, someone was watching me.

This was too bizarre.

Weirdly enough, no amount of twisting my head around corners could help me find where the music was coming from. It didn't have the scratchy, grainy quality of something coming from a radio, but it didn't feel as though it were coming from any particular direction either.

Like it was in my head.

Way too bizarre.

Maybe my lack of sleep was catching up to me.

I got up and went down the street at least ten times, but the lullaby never got any closer, so I ended up calling it a day to my search.

I dug myself closer into my coat as a chill racked my body. I was more confused than I was on edge now, but I just decided to make my way home.

I was mentally drained – paranoid yes, yet not ready to cower in a corner anymore.

Locking the frail-y built door behind me – I slid to the floor in dread.

There was no way this house could survive a break-in, I thought with my head in my hands.

It was a cheap, dingy little apartment – bigger in size than some but completely lacking on quality – the kind that you expected to find when you couldn't afford much.

I picked myself off the ground and began scaling the house, locking every door and window.

Securing the lock on the kitchen window, I stopped to read a hastily written letter by the fridge – undeniably in my mother's handwriting.

'I'm going out tonight, don't wait up.'

My heart swelled painfully as I tried to avoid the uncomfortable tightening of my throat.

My 'mission' was long forgotten as I began reading over the note again and again – almost expecting the words to change.

My brain instantly seized to function as I remembered.

In a fit where my limbs moved before my brain could process anything, I was in front of a child's door.

Pure fear seized my veins as I creaked the door open and saw my baby brother on the floor, completely enamoured with his crayons and a sheet of paper.

My knees shook with relief as I went to sit in front on him. He looked up for a second and smiled, showing off his dimples, before returning to his sheet.

"She left you on your own, did she?" I asked with fake lightness, trying to make my voice as silly as possible.

He nodded his head lightly, obviously not understanding why I needed to know. I ruffled my fingers through his hair and pressed a soft kiss to his temple."Sorry, Jugnu."

She – my mother – hadn't always been like this. She was once the most radiant person I knew. Everything about her just glowed. I suppose the move hadn't just changed me.

I sighed, trying to focus solely on the crooked little cat my brother was drawing.

My brother – Jackson – was quite the artist for his age.

I was sure he'd love to become one when he was older – Pictures spoke ten times as loudly compared to words, anyway.

Jackson, though he could hear the softest noise from a mile away, couldn't speak. Couldn't or wouldn't, I didn't know.

He was an insanely bright kid but ever since we moved - ever since then, he just stopped.

The kid had a lot of pressure put on him at school, which scared me because I couldn't be there for him.

He was six now, and I just knew that I wouldn't be able to stand the day he lost the innocence in his eyes because someone bullied him or something.

"Hey bud, how would you feel about a sleep-over at Steven's house today?" I asked him gently. Steven was one of the next-door neighbour's kids, and the two boys got along quite nicely – which was truely a god-send for when I had to spend more time at the shop.

And anyway – with that note I had gotten... I couldn't risk having him around if something did happen.

He nodded excitedly, his hazel-y brown eyes glowing.

I chuckled and patted down his blond mop of hair. He looked a lot more like our father than I did, at least, according to my mother he did, in the few times she'd mention it in passing.

I couldn't remember much of my father before he left us – but from my mother's stories of him, he seemed like a good man once.

I grabbed Jackson and tossed him in the air above me – he was quite small and all too bright for his age, which was why I liked calling him 'Jugnu' or 'Fire-fly'. I mean, just the last week he'd finished looking over each page of this encyclopaedia he specially asked for, detailing the inner workings of a fish's anatomy, just so he could draw the fins right.

It's not that he could understand the words, and he got bored of drawing fishes the day after, but I think I was safe to assume he had a persistently brilliant soul for his age.

He exploded in a fit of silent giggles as I carried him out the door, hastily having made a small backpack of stuff he'd need.

It was rare – the small happy moments we had with what baggage we both held. But whenever there were moments where I got to see him smile without a single shadow of sadness on his face – I'd cherish it for the rest of the week.

I couldn't help it.

I was getting paranoid about the time.

It was getting close to seven and I couldn't shake my need to keep peering over my shoulder in dread because I couldn't toss aside the notion that I was going to get kidnapped and shipped off to a circus half-way across the world as soon as the clock struck eight.

My brother was safe which took away at least ninety percent of my concern – but I still, could just not shake the worry away.

Maybe I could play a Kevin McAllister on whoever the schmuck was that wrote the note – so that I had some semblance of safety maybe.

A pin or two on the stairs, a flamethrower at the door... wouldn't work, I realised, since I didn't really have stairs in this place, nor was I too keen on breaking any fire code violations.

I was a good noodle after all, and safety was key.

I snorted to myself. Who was I kidding – I didn't have the smarts of some sadistic eight year old boy, nor the convenient writing chops that made him so good at messing with bandits. This was the alternate timeline where the kid actually gets got.

I sighed.

You know what, screw this.

I was getting way too stressed out over a complete hypothetical scenario that was more likely than anything – Just. A. Prank.

Frustrated with myself, I decided to take a shower to de-stress.

Oh late showers, could there be anything better? I thought to myself, practically swooning.

Encased in my steamy prison, I blasted on some tunes in the background, humming to myself, which, by natural extension led to full blown singing after a hot second.

I stood there until the hot water was nearly blanching my skin red – yes I know, hot water was a bitch to your hair, but there were very few things in life that were so refreshing and also so completely worth it.

Thankfully, I seemed to have achieved my goal of forgetting about the note from the shop – or at least it didn't worry me anymore. It was eight thirty and I was still alive and kicking.

Getting out of the shower, I had put on my oversized PJ's, with my hair hanging in wet strands down my back. Men's pyjamas were just so much sturdier than the transparent cotton they normally sold to girls y'know – and so my night time wardrobe was for the most part, the same.

I combed through the now flat streaks of nearly black hair, picking at the tangles. I had cut it to just under my ears last summer, but it had grown to just below my shoulders now, the thick mass of it a solid shade, making me look like some wild child who'd been raised by wolves.

When I finished, I took a moment to just stare at myself. Grey orbs observed their reflection as I lamented over how my face once looked.

It was like my skin hadn't gotten the memo to drop the teenagery skin issues one normally encountered through puberty – so while girls my age were looking like newly born sphinx cats, I was still here, looking like an alarmed sloth.

I had blotchy purple circles under my eyes – no doubt built-up from the long days at the shop. My olive skin seemed oddly green and sickly, and the redness of acne seemed to have been making a grand appearance around my nose.

I huffed – already tired of the way I looked, before deciding to head back to my room and binge watch the latest episodes of whatever was hot right now.

I scaled the apartment, traversing the stretch of it to get back to my room from the bathroom.

I was humming as I always did when I was alone, a silly little song from some silly little cartoon – it had become such a habit, with some select tunes so ingrained on my brain that I wouldn't even register when I started.

My voice died in my throat however, my body frozen in the doorway to my room at the sight before me.

My room was a haven of mine – a room that was only mine. Everything was always messy, the floor littered with books, clothes accumulating in a pile over at the corner, a few dozen coffee mugs lying around.

It was my mess.

But sitting right at the centre of it was a sight that made me have to double-take.

A person – a skinny man, with a dark unruly mess of ink-like curly hair and a long dark coat discarded off to the side, sat on the edge of my bed, swaying back and forth slightly.

He had tan skin and a light splattering of freckles all over his face. He wore a plain white button up with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark suit pants and a pair of black shoes.

It must have taken a moment for him to notice me standing there, because as soon as he did, his green eyes visibly brightened and in an effort not to show how... strangely overjoyed he was to see me, he plastered on a mischievous grin and held out a bobby pin.

"This body seems to have a knack for lock-picking. Must've taken it up in exchange for 'French' this time round," He started in a low British accent.

I could practically hear the smirk in his voice.

My brain was in full panic mode as I tried to figure out who the hell was in my room and what I could do. Surprisingly, the instinct to punch his lights out and make a mad dash to the neighbours for help had escaped my mind.

He mustn't have noticed the alarm on my face, because a second passed before he broke into a little rant, exasperatedly saying things like "I found one in my shoe the other day" and "You can't just leave them lying about the ship like that!"

All I could do was watch the seemingly insane stranger pace around my room until I decided to try and find my voice – anything that would break me out of my fit.

"U-Um, just who are you?" I asked abruptly, putting on my best attempt at sounding confident, yet failing miserably. "What the hell are you doing in my room?"

Seriously, are you kidding me? I had a whole spinning wheel of options on 'what to do' appear in my head, yet my brain just had to go with 'choosing to talk to the crazy man' who could clearly overpower me in height and strength if he wanted to.

I immediately regretted my choice to confront him instead of getting help, because almost instantly, he lost all traces of his carefree demeanour and started inspecting me closely.

His eyes raked over every inch of my face and quickly down my body, making me blush at the intensity of his gaze.

He seemed to have reached a stop as his bravado visibly fell and he seemed almost cautious. The shift in demeanour made this all very real, another awfully real sense of fear making itself known.

"Ah, I see. You're still early. Very early," He said slowly, watching me carefully.

Before I could respond, he grabbed his hair as his eyes went wide in some disbelief, "Blimey! I don't remember the last time I saw you this young. Not that you ever look old," He ended with a cheery smile.

"Older you would've slapped me for that. Ouch," He placed a hand up to his cheek in mock-hurt, "Never mind that. Don't want to jinx it."

I gawked back, more confused than I ever had been.

"What are you talking about...? Were you looking for my mother?" I asked him guardedly, holding myself up higher. This wouldn't have been the first time then, I thought – realising my mother had fewer reservations about this kind of thing. Still, despite the occasional gentlemen friend she'd call over for a drink, I knew for sure that she'd never let someone in if she wasn't around – and definitely never near her kids.

I realised I suddenly didn't want the answer to that question, determined to just get rid of this sketchy guy. "Look, even if you were, what kind of a person breaks into a girl's bedroom? Unless you're some sort of pervert, I imagine you'll have a harder time coming up with an excuse," I finished, fixing him with a poignant look.

He seemed to take some of that in stride, oddly enough.

"What can I say? I drop pointless niceties when it comes to you, my dear. I can't be bothered waiting outside when we have adventures to go on, now can I?" He said charmingly, getting up and towering over towards me. "Also hello, it's me by the way. Your very own Doctor. I take it you haven't seen me like this yet; otherwise you wouldn't be standing there with your mouth hanging open."

He bent down slightly and looked at me like he was expecting something from me. His eyes were half-lidded and knowing, as if he had done this a thousand times. A patronizing, almost snooty air surrounded him, but the half-smile he bore seemed to be trying to suppress undeniably real feelings of happiness.

"Sorry, Doctor who?" I asked and almost laughed at that, leaning back in apprehension and by how close he was now standing in front of me.

"What do you mean by early? And 'older' me?"

Realisation seemed to dawn on him over how I had no idea what he was going on about.

It was like a flip had switched then, and right in front of me, he seemed to visibly age ten years. His bright green eyes that had been glittered with mischief turned void of their previous warmth and amusement – looking pallid. His skin too, just emptied of its life, leaving him looking cold to the touch.

"You have no idea who I am, do you?" He questioned in a barely there voice, a shade higher than a whisper. There was something about it that was just so laced with meaning and intent, and god I wondered how he was doing such a good job at acting like he'd had something important taken away from him.

He just looked straight into my eyes with a look that was almost desperate. "You've never met me before, not with this face or any of the other ones?"

"You'd think the confused looks and blank stare would have answered that for you," I muttered, slowly becoming more annoyed, before I properly looked into his face.

I couldn't help but feel a strange pity for this confusing stranger who looked so seemingly broken, in front of me. No one had ever looked at me like this before – in fact, I had doubted such a raw expression of emotion could exist outside of what people described in fancy poems and song lyrics.

I looked at him blankly, my voice wary and unable to reflect his feelings, "Who are you?"

The question seemed to break something in him.

Though before I could observe the change of emotion in his gaze, he shut his eyes and whirled around so that his back was facing me.

The lines in his back through his shirt were taught and rigid, like a violin who's strings were about to snap from excessive winding. He had his fists clenched at his sides as he seemed to physically be trying to restrain an urge to act on something. The pressure he seemed to be exerting was enough to make me wince, as I pictured red, weeping cuts where his nails were digging into skin.

After what felt like minutes, I heard him heave nothing more than a quiet sigh as he looked back at me. His eyes were very suddenly bloodshot.

"Well then, I suppose I'll have to introduce myself. Probably not making the best first impression, am I?" He chuckled lightly, the smile not reaching his eyes, leaving them empty. He took a step back so that he wasn't in my personal space anymore and extended his hand in an expectant handshake, "I'm the Doctor. And before you ask, yes that really is my name."

Before I could answer him, I felt a sharp pain in my chest and convulsed.

Like an electric shock, the pain was searing and I immediately felt all breath leave my body. Before I knew it, it was gone, leaving my eyesight slightly hazy from shutting my eyes so hard and my throat dry from the scream I must've erupted.

A pair of hands found themselves on each side of my arms and I could vaguely hear the man speaking soothing words to me as he lead me to the corner of the bed to sit down.

"What-what's happening to me?" I demanded dizzily, fast and almost drunken in the way I did, feeling the world come back into focus.

I could barely hear his voice through my distortion, but it sounded level – like he knew but wasn't letting on.

"Love, you're going to have to be very brave now. Do you hear me? And above everything, I'm so very sorry. I'm so, so sorry, but you're leaving."

He spoke dismally yet in an even tone, rubbing my back as if he expected me to freak out at any instant. All the while, he had found the scrappy leather satchel I carried around with me everywhere.

He had begun shoving things into it. He packed my journal and my phone before anything else quickly moving to search my bedside table while taking small, seemingly insignificant things like pictures and memento's – I blanched as I realised that he was probably the one who had written the note.

"What do you mean? Please, you're scaring me..." I uttered quite pathetically, unable to stop the shaking in my hands that only started when my anxiety was beginning to get out of hand. I had never felt such a seething pain my whole life. My throat stung fiercely while my skin felt like it was being set on fire.

He instantly stopped what he was doing and with a soft, lop-sided smile, he leaned down in front of me. Taking both of my small hands in his larger ones and stopping their movements, he looked into my eyes. I was taken aback by the tenderness in his own as they radiated and seemed to simultaneously melt when he looked into my own.

No one had ever looked at me like that before and I couldn't help the furious blush that crept up my neck as I felt the need to avert my eyes.

I wasn't worth that kind of attention, no matter who it was coming from.

All the pain was momentarily forgotten as I was, once again, left baffled by the deranged man.

"Do not worry, Fiona Moore. I know you're scared and you have every right to be, but please, trust me," He asked in a tone so undeniably genuine and with eyes so clear, that I knew he wasn't lying.

Somehow I knew.

Either that or I had officially lost my mind and was hallucinating whatever bizarre dream my brain had thought up.

"How do you know me?" I ground out, my eyes drilling holes into his. I felt my anger catch up to me and tried to stave off the hysteria in my mind.

I just wanted some answers.

He didn't answer. Instead his smile fell as he slipped the bag around me, before grabbing my chin lightly so that all my focus was on him.

"Where you're going, you'll meet a man. You'll definitely know him, I'm sure of it, and hopefully– God, hopefully he'll know you too." He ended just as I felt another blast of pain, this time watching as wisps and spirals of white flowing light, fluttered from my chest, slowly beginning to encompass me.

"W-What the hell..." I trailed off, my eyes fixed on the lights. I felt my vision go hazy and my heartbeat go haywire, just as it was when I was in front of the sign at the shop and that guy had bumped into me.

"That's your signal, I'm afraid," He spoke, letting go of my hands and beginning to step back, "Courage, dear heart."

"Wait!" I pleaded, grabbing the sleeve of his shirt.

"W-Will we meet again?" I asked, surprising myself with my forwardness. I had only known him for what, ten minutes? And I expected him to meet me again after I left to god knows where?

Smiling sadly, he took my hand and pressed a soft kiss on the back of it. "Oh my dear, I'm afraid you'll never be able to get rid of me."

He let go reluctantly, and before I could ask the cause of the sadness in his face, I had to shut my eyes because of the intensity of the bright white light.

The pain was overwhelming as it spread, all over my body. Eventually my legs gave way, and once the pressure of the light grew too strong for me, I was thrown into darkness.

A/N: Hello Readers! Welcome to my first story here. I was inspired to write a story inspired by Artemis Sherwood's "Once Upon Another Time" because I absolutely adore the idea of having an original character jump through the Doctors life, being a constant companion. I very much loved her story and was devastated when it was discontinued. Although this story will in no way be a copy and I hope to make the chapters very different as well as the personality of my OC.

I will mainly be focusing on 'The Revival Series of Doctor Who' with Doctors 9-12 for now because I've only just recently started 'Classic Who' and hope to include more of that once I'm more comfortable with the setting and the characters.

To clear up confusion, there are three versions of the doctor in this chapter – because that makes everything better, doesn't it? The woman in the shop was Jodie Whittaker's Doctor, whom we haven't seen as of yet – but I hope I made her seem compelling. The last version seen is a probable future version of the doctor, after Capaldi and Whittaker. Writing an OC version of the doctor might've or might've not been an incredibly stupid decision, either way I'll let you decide and if you don't like him, I'll never feature him again. P.S. I imagine him looking quite alot like the model/actor Ryan Kennedy (When he had curly hair) or Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock – Maybe even Eddie Redmayne. The first version seen outside the shop is who I'll leave up to you guys – but with a tan trenchcoat, I guess I made it a bit easy, huh?

The reason I'm using future versions of the Doctor is because, Fiona here, knows about Doctor Who – and I thought it would be compelling to see what it would be like to have no idea that it's the Doctor that you're meeting – the same way all companions do!

P.P.S. I'll be focusing on the versions of the Doctor we already know and love from now on, also already existing episodes and no new ones.

*Edited - P.P.S.S. The lyrics mentioned are from 'Sleeping at last – Saturn' – I really hope you guys check it out; it's a great song that comes from a really great band.

Alot of open-ended parts with no clear meaning may make a re-appearance, so watch out.