Hello, everyone, and welcome to my new biggest fanfiction project! This will be a 2 book series titled 'Something Lost' and 'Something Missing'. I have been planning and rewriting this story for about 9 months now, and I think I finally am writing a version that I like. This has been re-uploaded several times now ;-;. If you prefer a different format to read, please consider checking my tumblr, the-sleepdeprived, for a version of this fic on my blog :)
If you have any problems with transgender, nonbinary, or non-heterosexual characters, I suggest you A) stop reading this fic, B) stay in your lane, and C) why are you even reading fanfics
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Sophia Archer(Original Character), Rose Tyler, and the entity of Bad Wolf, as well as a few more original characters along the way.
Categories: Adventure, Friendship, Humor/Comedy, Fanfiction, AU (Alternate Universe) from the end of Season 1.
Rated: PG-13 for slight swearing, and just to be safe.
Triggers: I will be doing these by chapter, but overall this fic will contain touchy subjects such as homophobia and transphobia in nearly every story arc. Please stay safe and if you are at all triggered by these subjects, you should find another fic. Your mental health always means more to me than reads :)
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Doctor Who. I do, however, own all characters created by me. (Sophia, Maya, etc)
This chapter was last edited on 2/13/15. Enjoy!
~0~
CHAPTER 1
She was burning.
Rose could feel the whole of time ripping through her, destroying her, changing her.
Suddenly, the smooth metal floor and walls all around meant nothing. The deadly creatures all around, screaming, calling her the abomination that she was. They were nothing. She could see all that is, was, could be, and what must not.
Her eyes opened, and they blazed golden. Her blonde hair whipped around her in a wind only she could feel, and her fair skin held an unearthly glow. She spoke to the man who had given her this power, however indirectly, telling him of how she was saving him. He wept at her feet, begging her to stop, to let go of the power that was killing her. The power she wasn't meant to have.
Rose knew it was too late for that.
She spoke of how she would die here, because the Bad Wolf had already taken over her mind. There was no Rose left, just the Wolf.
And so the Wolf continued on, destroying all those who threatened her best friend. She knew there was a way for him to save her, take his power back. But he didn't know. She brought life, in all this destruction, to another man, a hero.
The Wolf could feel something, nagging at the edge of her vast consciousness. She ignored it. After all, she could afford to do so. There were far more interesting things in this universe to see.
All she could see now, in what she knew were her final moments was her savior, her best friend, her entire life, begging for her to let go.
She was sobbing, so terrified of death.
But she could not. Not even for him.
The nagging feeling grew stronger. Something was wrong, so, so wrong...
She caught it.
There was only one thing to do, and she reached out, grabbing someone at random. She saw their face for only a moment before she died. Perfect, she thought.
Time was wrong. Every moment of the future was burning, collapsing because of what she hadn't done. Rose let a tear slip down her cheek, it was the only thing left she had the strength to do. She was gone.
My eyes snapped open, taking in the pale orange light trickling in through the curtains. It stayed like this a while, me staring up at the ceiling and it staring back. I thought over my dream, definitely one of my weirder ones. Where the hell had my mind gotten 'Bad Wolf' from, anyway? Thinking this over, I rolled over on my side, coming face-to-face with my alarm clock. It was 8:45.
"Damn!" I swore, diving out of bed and nearly falling over as I pulled on a pair of jeans. I ran a brush through my hair while simultaneously trying to button up a frilly blue blouse with one hand. As I ran out the door, I stuffed half a bagel in my mouth as an afterthought.
Ah. Don't you just love mornings?
I started up my rust bucket of a truck, and made my way out to the main road.
After a tedious, road-rage filled drive, I sprinted into the diner where I worked as a waitress and took my place outside the kitchens. It was only 9:20, maybe no one would notice...
My boss approached me five minutes later.
"Adrien, this is the third time this week!" I flinched at the name, but knew better to correct him. He didn't have to say much more, I got the message. One more time, and I was fired. "You really are a good waiter, you know, but if you keep this up there really isn't anything I can do."
I nodded. "Yes, sir." I should be working harder at this job. It was a miracle they had accepted someone like me for the job anyways, and constantly being referred to as male was a small price to pay in the long run.
You see, I have the serious misfortune of being a transgender woman in a small town. Everyone knew, and everyone had something to say, whether I wanted to hear it or not.
After a few hours of smiling and acting overly nice for tips, along with some more unfortunate criticisms from the customers, I went home at 5 PM. I didn't have much to do today other than fold some laundry, so I settled on the couch to get started, and flipped the TV on. The channel was a local news one, I remembered checking it briefly last night before bed. I was going to flip the channel to something new, when I saw something of interest flash across the screen.
"-Police have been noticing more and more cases of graffiti in strange places, on houses, the Fire & Ice Bristo, even all over the sidewalks! All new messages seem to contain the phrase 'bad wolf'-"
I sat straight up, shoving the unfolded shirts to the side at the mention of the phrase, my dream replaying in fast forward at the front of my mind.
"Residents are asked now to worry, the police have several suspects and intend on disciplining whoever is caught. Now, over to Yolanda for the weather!"
I had paused the TV on an image of the graffiti, and I just stared at it in slight awe. The graffiti was in all of my favorite places, houses in my neighborhood of my friends, my favorite place to go for walks. It had to be a coincidence, something else to link these other than me.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought 'Huh. Too much TV for me, I'm starting to believe in freak coincidences.'
~0~
This was no coincidence.
That was my only thought as I stood in front of the diner the next morning.
The large plate glass window in the front of the restaurant had been smashed in, and from what I could see of the inside over the shoulders of the police trying to control the crowd, the words 'Bad Wolf' had been spray painted all over the back wall in shiny metallic golden letters. It had been written over and over, in all places except one. Just behind the hostess stand where I checked in every morning, was the word 'archer'. This soon became my biggest problem, seeing as my last name on serious recurring graffiti and minor police track record didn't really give me a free pass away from the cops, did it?
When 'archer' had been discovered, the police shooed away the crowd gathered outside the diner, and took me with them back to the station 'just in case.' I only got one call, to my friend, Valerie, who confirmed she would get me out of jail if necessary. I was twenty-one, I could handle myself.
They took my bag and phone from me on the ride to the station, stashing them away in a large gray storage box.
When we finally arrived, they led me to an interrogation room. I hadn't had the pleasure of experiencing one of these yet, so I couldn't help but be a little bit excited. An officer, who told me his name was Davies, set up a small camera in front of me to record what I had to say.
"State your full name for the record please?" he asked.
"Sophia Caroline Archer" I stared into the camera, all but ignoring the officer.
He rolled his eyes and, knowing I wouldn't say it, said "Adrien Chase Archer" loudly. Again, I ignored him.
"Would you care to tell me what you did today? All of it, starting from the beginning."
"I woke up at around 7:00 AM, got ready, had breakfast, whatever. I left to make my way over here at about 8:30. I saw the graffiti and was going to just go home for the day, it really wasn't me who did it." Honestly, they really didn't have reason to think I had done this. I had some parking tickets unpaid, and yeah, some stolen candy bars, but I was no artist. "Why is graffiti so important that you're interrogating people?"
Officer Davies ignored me, smiling in a way that didn't quite light up his eyes like a real smile would. "Have you seen this man?" He tossed me a photo and I studied it carefully.
The man was tall looking, mid-forties, with short dark hair. He wore a leather jacket with a dark blue tee underneath. His startlingly blue eyes seemed to cut their way through the glossy finish of the photograph to stare at me.
"Never. Who is he?" I asked.
"The Doctor. That's all you need to know. How about this person? Do you know her?" He threw another photograph nonchalantly at my face. I caught it, and inhaled sharply at who it was.
Blonde hair, brown eyes, a pink hoodie. This was Bad Wolf.
"No, I've never seen her, either." I said. It wasn't a lie, not really. They'd laugh if I told them about the dream, so it was pointless. Dreams didn't matter in real life... Right?
Officer Davies frowned at this response, standing up and leaning on the table with one hand. "You see, Archer, we know you're lying." He smacked another photo down in front of me, a triumphant smirk on his slightly pig-like face.
It was of a restaurant, zoomed in to focus on a corner booth. I could just see the side of the man from the first photograph's face, and Bad Wolf sitting next to him. That didn't really surprise me, though. Who I saw with them surprised me even more. It was me, mid laugh at something one of them had said.
I could feel my heartbeat grow faster as I stared in disbelief at the photo in front of me. Thun-thun, it went. Thun-thun-thun-thun.
I looked up in anger. "I've never even been to that restaurant in my life! Much less, met these people! These pictures have got to be made up, I tell you with Photoshop or someth-"
"I think that's quite enough, don't you?" a cool feminine voice floated from the doorway. "Davies, put those damn pictures away, even I know you faked them. Sophia, if you'd like to come with me?"
I stood numbly, ambling over to where the woman was standing. A warm feeling fluttered up in my chest at my being addressed as a 'she' for once.
"I'm Captain Sylvia Dailey of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce, or UNIT. I'm the one they call in when all hell breaks loose."
"Has all hell broken loose?" I ask.
"A bit." She smiles and begins to walk off out of the interrogation room and into a grey narrow hallway. I ignore the stares coming from various workers and catch up quickly.
"Why did Officer Davies fake those pictures? And, why was I just interrogated for graffiti? I didn't even do it!"
"Because, he's just as desperate as the rest of us. People find something they can't explain, and they try to make an explanation themselves, that's just how people are. It's not about the graffiti; it's about what it says."
We walk in silence for a few more feet while I contemplate the meaning behind her words. I decide to just not ask about the graffiti again, I was worried that if I asked too many why questions, it would seem more and more like I was the one to do it. Instead, I asked about the photos. "Who was she? The girl from the picture, I mean."
"Her name's Rose Tyler. She went missing from London in 2005. She reappeared exactly one year later, only to disappear again less than eight hours after. Of course, all hell broke loose in those eight hours, and I got called in, couldn't track her. By the time I got back in, she was gone again. She hasn't officially turned up since then."
"Officially?"
"There have been plenty of rumors, especially ones that say she is the heart of all this 'bad wolf' business. Rumors even say that she IS the Wolf."
"So UNIT's investigating?" I was catching on quickly, I thought proudly. "But... Why's she so special? Don't get me wrong, it's great that you're trying to find her, but I've never heard of UNIT before, so you can't be run-of-the-mill police."
Captain Dailey grinned. "You catch on fast. I knew I liked you, kid. No, we're not police, and Rose Tyler is potentially the most important girl in the universe."
I couldn't help being skeptical. "Why exactly would you think that, then?"
"That's classified." With a cheeky smile and a swish of black hair, she was gone.
I followed her (Seems like I was doing a lot of that...) around the corner. "So, if UNIT isn't police, what do they do?"
"We investigate anything abnormal. Space debris, unexplained events, aliens, anything that police can't handle, which includes, if we're being honest with ourselves, is mostly everything."
"Er... Did you just say aliens?" I asked tentatively.
She smiled. "Yes, I did. Want to meet one?"
~0~
Captain Dailey led me to a tiny room where she said that UNIT was based. Desks and chairs lined the walls, much like office cubicles. She headed straight for the back, a small open area with only one desk and a strange blue telephone box that said 'POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX' across the top. She ignored my cries of 'an alien? in here?' and 'you're crazy!' and instead focused on looking around the room as if waiting for someone.
We were suddenly approached by a disheveled man, not wearing the standard UNIT soldier's uniform, but a brown pinstriped suit and a light brown trench coat. Something about him radiated a sort of energetic feeling, like you could just get up and run a mile. He looked at me with an expression of pure curiosity.
"Well?" he asked.
"Well what?" I asked.
"They said you had a lead on Bad Wolf. What've you got?"
"I think you've got the wrong person, man. I'm just here because someone decided to spray paint my name on the wall of the diner where I work. Trust me, I'm not here by choice." I said.
"Doctor, we didn't say she had a lead, we said she was our lead." Captain Dailey said.
The 'Doctor' frowned. "That's rubbish, I was hoping for more than that, what's she got to do with anything?"
"I am standing right here, you know?" I said with annoyance. "Who are you supposed to be, then?"
"Sorry. I'm the Doctor." 'The Doctor' didn't sound very sorry at all.
"What? Doctor who?" I asked. They ignored me again.
As Captain Dailey and the Doctor started talking quietly among themselves, a thought dawned on me.
"Hey, didn't Officer Davies say that that guy with the leather jacket was the Doctor?"
Both of their heads snapped around to stare at me.
"Just a thought..." I said pathetically in my defense.
The Doctor seemed interested, though. "What did this guy look like? The leather jacket guy?"
I described him, and the Doctor made an annoyed noise. "Yup, that'd be me." he said.
"Er... sorry, what?" I asked.
"Me." He said.
"But that doesn't make any sense..."
Captain Dailey didn't seem very affected by this. "I told you you'd be meeting an alien today, Sophia." she said.
I snorted. "What, him?"
"Yes, me!" He seemed offended. "No need to act so surprised, you just walked straight into the base of an organization that hunts aliens!"
"But you look human..."
"No, you look like a Time Lord." he insisted.
"Time lord?" I queried. "That isn't much to go on, where's some proof? Sounds ridiculously self-centered, as well. You're the least lord-like person I've ever seen in my life, aside from the attitude. "
"I've got two hearts and a time machine." he boasted, smirking and appearing not to hear my comment on the name he had mentioned.
I laughed, I couldn't help it. "If you were an alien, why would you just tell us you've got a time machine? That's not very smart."
He frowned. "I'm the smartest person in this room."
"See, there you go! Aliens aren't 'people.'"
"Depends on your definition of person." He rolled his eyes and turned around to Captain Dailey. "Are we ready to try it again?"
She nodded.
"Try what?" I asked. Again, I was ignored. It was probably a bad thing I was getting used to it.
"Quite right, too." Said the Doctor, facing the wall. I had no idea who he was talking to, until he started to flicker. We were on a beach. No, we were at UNIT... He was crying. A girl was crying. But who was she? I couldn't see her, just a blur of skin and hair. Was she even real? No, maybe she was not. Then, how was she crying? Why was she crying? She loved him. He couldn't speak. The stormy beach vanished, and I collapsed to the ground.
~0~
I awoke to Captain Dailey's concerned face above me.
"What happened?" I asked.
She frowned. "I don't know."
I sat up and looked around, blinking away slight blurriness from passing out. I turned just in time to see the tail of the Doctor's coat disappear into the weird blue telephone box of sorts in the back. I shakily stood, ignoring Captain Dailey's protests that I needed to rest, and followed the Doctor inside. Time to get some real answers for once.
~0~
Impossible was the first word that came to my mind. The box had to have been only a yard across and a yard deep, about 8 feet tall.
This was not the box, It couldn't be! I ran out the door, running my hands all around the edges band sides of the box, they were definitely there, definitely solid, definitely not what I had just seen. I ran back inside, to see the Doctor grinning at me from the middle of the room.
It was huge, the room. Round and in the shape of a dome, the ceiling had to have been 20 feet above my head. Huge sculptures, reminding me of oversized metal trees decorated around the perimeter of the room. Metal grating rattled under my feet as I took a hesitant step forward. The walls were made of huge golden panels, with lines of hexagonal shapes going all the way up. In the center of the room, a blue circular column seemed to dance up and down, casting the room in an unearthly blue light. Around the column was every type of switch or button you could ever hope for, and wires dangled from the ceiling. The Doctor stood at the column, which seemed to be some type of console, or steering mechanism.
"See?" he said proudly. "Time machine."
"...It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside...?" I said dumbly, eyes wide and taking in the wonder before me. "Oh my god, you are an alien."
"Now, what we are going to do with this time machine, what you are probably wondering, but too much in a state of shock to ask, is find Rose Tyler. Who is Rose Tyler? You're also wondering this, I could tell from the minute you walked in. Up until recently, this place, this ship, was her home as well as mine. She travelled with me, through time and space, and we saw anything and everything the universe could throw at us."
"Why isn't she here anymore, then?" I whispered, my brain working at a million miles an hour to try to process what was going on.
The Doctor seemed delighted. "Excellent! Most people don't start talking for another five minutes! You're taking this very well, I think. But, um, I think it would be easier if we talked outside, might be easier to, uh, think." As he went on, he got more and more awkward. Something told me it was more than the distractingly huge room that he was thinking about.
He led me out the doors, where a smirking Captain Dailey stared at us both.
"Great, isn't it? Doctor, we've got good news. This time, we managed to get a year for you! It's 2006."
The Doctor frowned. "But that's interesting, we're in 2014 now, why we're still here and alive is beyond me... I'll be there in a minute, Captain, I've got a bit of explaining to do." He gestured to me vaguely.
She nodded, and the Doctor sat me down at the lone desk at the back of the room, handing me a cup of tea he had gotten from one of the soldiers wandering about. I took it gratefully, and sipped a bit. Too much sugar, but it would do.
"You asked why Rose wasn't with me anymore." The Doctor said.
I nodded.
"You see, travelling with me is dangerous." he said carefully. I had the distinct feeling he was avoiding the need to say something. "Sometimes, things happen, and something goes wrong."
"What happened to her?"
"She died."
~0~
Well, uh, if you haven't spotted the difference yet, I dunno what you were just reading... but that's it for today! I'm going to spread out the updates over a week of two, because as you all know, I suck at updating. Like, really suck. I have 5 chapters written as of now :)
Anyways, love you all!
~Skyler
