"Doctor, we're losing her!"
Doctor Farris sighed. "Really, Xander, must you be so dramatic?" He lazily flipped a switch next to him and all the machinery around him whirred to life. Everyone in the room had their eyes fixed on the elderly woman on the hospital bed.
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After 3 seconds, the woman's eyes slowly opened, and she sat up.
"Good morning, ma'am," said Doctor Farris slowly, "how are you feeling?"
Silently, the woman looked around the hospital room.
"Am I sick?" She asked.
The doctor nodded his head gravely, "Oh, yes, very sick".
The woman asked, "Am I contagious?"
Doctor Farris nodded again.
"I see," said the woman, "I shall eliminate the threat".
The woman looked around again, and saw a loaded handgun on the table next to her. She wordlessly picked up the gun, put the barrel in her mouth, and pulled the trigger.
In the next moment, she was lying lifeless on the bed, the wall behind her splattered with blood, and... something metallic.
There were a few seconds of silence, and then the room burst into applause.
"Congratulations, doctor!" Said the nurse, Xander, "It was a complete success!"
Chapter One: Wormhole
Given that the Tardis just sort of materialized in and out of places, Clara didn't think it would be possible for it to have anything resembling a crash landing, but nevertheless, there was no other way to describe what had just happened.
"Eh, Doctor!" Clara had to shout over all the noise the Tardis was making- or rather, all the noise that it's pilot was making. The Doctor ran around the control panel looking like the madman he was, pushing buttons and pulling levers all over, each one adding to the ridiculous noise.
"Doctor!" Clara shouted again, this time managing to get a fraction of his attention.
"Eh? Speak up Clara, what was that?" The Doctor asked, still not looking away from all his precious buttons.
"Uh, what just happened?" Asked Clara, more than a little exasperated.
"What do you mean?" Asked The Doctor, "Oh, oh, of course, that; we crashed".
Clara just barely resisted the urge to hit him over the head.
"Yes Doctor, I am aware of that. I meant, why?"
"We made an unexpected time jump," said The Doctor, still enamored with his control panel, "stumbled through a wormhole".
"OK then... and what are you doing with the panel?" Clara asked.
"Well, if you've ever fallen down a hole," he paused and looked Clara up and down, "which I imagine you have, you'll know that it isn't too easy to get back out again".
The Doctor slammed his fist into the console, which the Tardis didn't seem to like as it let out a series of high-pitched beeps.
Yeesh, I'm starting to sound like him, Clara thought, note to self; stop personifying the Tardis.
"The sudden jump messed with the time circuits," The Doctor continued, "Tardis isn't where it expected to end up, so it doesn't know where or when we we are relative to anywhere else. Hypothetically, we could try travelling, but there's no telling where or when we'd end up, so we're effectively grounded until the old girl gets her bearings".
"Well while we're here, we may as well take a look around," suggested Clara.
"Of course not!" Said The Doctor, "We have no idea where we are, it could be dangerous".
"Come on, I'll just take a look," Clara said, and she went to the Tardis door without waiting for The Doctor to say anything else. She looked out, and said "Um, Doctor? Are we where I think we are?"
"Somewhere we've been before?" Asked The Doctor, making his way over to the door.
"You could say that, yes," said Clara.
"Oh," said The Doctor as he looked out the door, "Oh, this is-"
"Earth," said Clara, cutting him off, "yeah, I fancy myself a bit of an expert on Earth, and I'd say this is it".
The Doctor was mumbling to himself. "Architecture... life forms..." he nodded towards a few normal looking humans walking by, staring at the Tardis, "air..." The Doctor took a deep breath and coughed.
"Filthy," he said, "but a match. Everything is a match for 21st Century Earth."
A woman walked by briskly, clearly trying to avoid eye contact with the strange man and woman who had just emerged from the wooden box.
"Excuse me, miss!" The Doctor ran up to her and grabbed her shoulder.
The woman turned around and said, in a voice that was clearly trying too hard not to sound rude, "May I help you?"
"You may," said The Doctor, "would you mind telling me what year it is?"
The woman laughed nervously, "It's the same as yesterday sir, 1986".
I must have heard that wrong, thought Clara. She looked around her, and it definitely looked like a very recent scene. They were in a city, with modern cars driven by people talking on wireless headsets going down a street that looked like it had recently been plowed of snow. There were large screens on several buildings, with the words "HAIL KRANG" flashing on them. OK, maybe Clara didn't recognize that part, but they didn't seem to belong in 1986.
"Doctor," She said, "I'm not so positive we're on Earth now".
"I know why we're here now, Clara," The Doctor said, "I know why we made that time jump".
The Doctor looked Clara directly in the eye.
"Clara, very soon, I am going to die".
