Well, this is my first Doctor Who fanfic, so I hope you enjoy it :D
I do not own Doctor Who, that wonderful right belongs to Russel T Davies... lucky bastard. (This companion however does belong to me, and this Doctor is my own version of a possible thirteenth incarnation.)
It was a dark and stormy night.
No, actually, it wasn't. Dark yes, as night usually is. But stormy? Not so much. In fact it was quite warm, with only the slightest breeze... it was quite a comfortable night really. It should have been a stormy night. Bad things are only supposed to happen on dark and stormy nights. The comfortably warm nights are supposed to be fun. Supposed to be safe. But such is the way of things. Events never unfold as they should, or as one would expect. Events simply happen, without warning, without hesitation. They just... happen.
On this dark – but not stormy – night, the central city was alive with people. Most people had chosen to take advantage of this beautiful night and drink excessively in public places with their friends. James Price was no exception to this. In fact, he was the one who had dragged his friends out of their homes and forced them to have fun. And fun they had. They weren't drinking too much and didn't end up embarrassing themselves, each bar seemed to have at least one woman that was thinking about being interested in them... all in all it was a good night.
Somewhere around one in the morning, James decided that it was probably time they all called it a night. His friends, or those remaining at least, wholeheartedly agreed as by this point they were quite drunk and rather exhausted. Unfortunately somebody, it seemed, had other plans for James. Golden blonde hair curling down to her waist, her little black dress accentuating irresistible curves and deep green eyes that could render you utterly speechless all made their way towards James determinedly. He was struck dumb as she leant forward and whispered suggestively in his ear, causing a stupid grin to spread across his face.
"Later, lads," he called back to his friends as the woman tugged him towards an alley behind the bar. His friends whistled and cheered, the odd vulgar suggestion being tossed in their direction. But James heard none of them. From the moment she had touched his hand, she was his world. He didn't know how he knew, but he knew that if he denied her anything, or let her down, he would break her heart... and his.
He therefore didn't question or complain when she pushed him roughly against the alley wall kissing him so hard he could almost feel the bruising. He didn't wonder what her name was, or why she didn't want to know his. He simply allowed the wall to support him as she had her way with him. Her lips were at his throat... or were they? Somewhere in the back of his mind, James new that whatever was brushing against his throat couldn't have been lips. Lips didn't feel like that. They weren't circular... or sharp... But outwardly, James showed no sign of his train of thought. Even when he could feel the blood being drained from his body. He never cried out. Never made a sound until, seemingly full, the woman allowed his body to drop to the ground with a light thud.
His body was found the next morning by the bar owner, and the authorities were completely befuddled as to what could have caused the strange marks in his neck. When his friends were questioned they remembered a woman dragging him off in that general direction. But they remembered nothing about her besides piercing green eyes. James Price died January 1st 2012. Cause of death was cited as exsanguination, though the method is yet to be discovered.
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Narrowing her eyes in confusion, the young woman stared at the alley way across the street from her, now cordoned off by yellow police tape and crowded with police officers and important looking people in suits. Something less than good had obviously happened there but the alley was too crowded to see. Among the important looking people in suits stood her boss, Ian who looked way out of his depth among all the official business. Her eyes narrowed further as she wondered what the hell had happened last night.
She tried to shake her head of the thoughts, wanting to wait until she got into work to deal with whatever drama had occurred last night, and stepped into her regular coffee shop, letting the warmth and the strong smell of caffeine envelope her.
"Morning, Alice," the man behind the counter greeted her warmly. "Usual?"
"Thanks," Alice nodded, her eyes moving unbidden back to the scene across the street.
"Murder," the man said as the machine espressed coffee into a cardboard takeaway cup for her. "Well, I think so at least."
"Murder?" she repeated, her eyes widening and now glued to the alley way.
"Yeah, I saw them carrying a body bag away this morning when I opened."
The coffee machine stopped what it was doing and the man began frothing the milk, a raspy screeching noise filling the small space. Alice was now totally entranced with what was going on across the street. She had been working last night, and she hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary that she could remember. She supposed it could have been a random mugging, but still... wow.
"Here you are love," the man said, handing her coffee to her from across the counter. Alice snapped back to the present and paid for her drink, smiling at the man before rushing across the street to work as fast as she could.
The questioning look she threw Ian as she passed him was returned with a semi-dismissive wave and a mouthed "later" as he tried to concentrate on what the police officers were explaining to him. Alice couldn't hear but she imagined it was something to do with laws and something Ian might be charged with. She didn't think it was true, that he could be charged with anything, but Ian looked like he might believe them. Shrugging, Alice pushed her way past ordinary citizens trying to get a closer look into the alley and made her way into the bar. Well, during the day it wasn't really a bar, it was just a restaurant, but at night it morphed into one of the most popular bars in the city. Why Alice had to work all last night and all day today was completely beyond her, but the pay was good and the work was easy so she decided to just down her coffee and get to work. After changing into her uniform and wrapping an apron around her waist, Alice left the back room and moved out from behind the bar, head lowered so she could finish pinning her hair down to her head before she began cleaning the tables. Unfortunately this limited her vision to her feet and a couple of centimetres ahead of her feet and so she didn't notice the person standing in front of her until it was very nearly too late and she had almost walked right into him.
"Sorry," she said automatically, taking a slight step back and lifting her head up so she could actually see what was going on in front of her. A very happy looking, red headed young man was what was going on in front of her, he must have been only a couple of years older than her. Though with what was potentially a murder investigation going on right out side, she didn't really see what he was so cheerful about. Maybe he hadn't heard the news.
"No, I'm sorry," the young man said kindly. "Should have made a noise or something."
Alice just smiled at him, not really in the mood to get into an argument about who's fault what was. There was a moment of awkward silence while each of them seemed to wait for the other to speak until finally Alice clapped her hands together and forced the brightest smile she could onto her face. "So... can I help you with something?" she asked.
A slight confused frown crossed the young man's face as he looked at her. "American?" he asked after a moment.
"Canadian," Alice corrected, frustration creeping into her voice. "Can I help you with something?" she repeated, wanting very much to just get to work as quickly as possible.
"Ah yes, sorry," he said, the grin never fading from his face as he reached into his back pocket and pulled out something that might have been a walled. "Detective John Smith," he introduced, flipping open the wallet-thing and revealing an ID. Alice squinted at it for a long moment, thinking he looked far too young to be a detective. But eventually she nodded to herself, it seemed legitimate. "You were working last night, correct?"
"Yeah," Alice said, deciding that she would have to work and talk at the same time or she would never get done in time. "But I didn't see anything."
The detective stepped out of her way and hovered behind her as she pulled chairs off of tables and wiped down the surfaced. "How do you know that that was what I was going to ask you?"
Alice fought not to roll her eyes. "There's police everywhere, and talk about a body bag outside, what else would you ask me?"
"Ah," he said. "Well, yes, I was going to ask you that. Are you absolutely sure?"
"Yeah," Alice nodded, standing up straight and turning around to face him. "I think I'd remember if I saw anything relevant to a murder."
"Ah," the detective said again, this time with not of realisation and the lift of a finger. "But, what if you saw something you didn't know was relevant to a murder?"
Alice folded her arms across her chest. She supposed that was possible, but how the hell was she supposed to figure out what that could have been? She saw a lot when she worked nights. "Like what?"
The man shrugged though something about his face made Alice think he knew more than he was letting on. Like he already knew what she saw and was just trying to get her to say it. "Like a person that stood out last night?"
Alice started to shake her head and tell the detective that no, no one had stood out last night, but she froze, lips slightly parted as a part of a memory swam to the surface of her mind. "There was this one woman," Alice said slowly, trying to focus on the picture in her mind. "She had long, curly blonde hair, legs even a model would kill for... and the most intense green eyes I have ever seen." Catching her bottom lip between her teeth, Alice chewed on it as she continued to think. "She had most of the men in the room falling over themselves trying to buy her drinks... or serve her drinks in the case of some of the waiting staff." Alice didn't think any of this was even remotely helpful but when she lifted her eyes back to the detective's he looked a mixture between horrified and incredibly pleased with himself. Obviously she had told him something he wanted to hear.
"Anything else?" he pressed, running a hand through his hair. "Do you think you'd be able to describe this woman to a sketch artist?"
Alice thought as hard as she could, still chewing on her bottom lip as she tried to cling to the memory of the woman from last night, but eventually she shook her head, sighing dejectedly. "No, sorry, that's all I've got." She frowned, mostly to herself. "That's really weird, usually I'm really good at faces."
Looking back up at Detective John Smith, it seemed to her that he could barely contain his excitement. "Thank you," he said, almost breathless as he shook her hand vigorously. "You've been a great help."
The intensity of his seemingly misplaced gratitude threw Alice slightly off guard and she just sort of stood there, mouth half open until he was out the door and across the street. She stared after him in shock for a moment before closing her mouth, dusting herself off and getting back to work.
Five o'clock was finally nearing and Alice was exhausted. Today had been one of the busiest days the restaurant had seen in a long while. Alice suspected it was due to the publicity the place had gotten after the news of the murder in the alley. In her lunch break, Ian had filled her in on the details, at least the ones he knew. A man had been found dead, strange circular puncture marks on his neck, and missing a good deal of his blood. The police suspect he was killed somewhere else due to the fact that there was no blood in the alley. At all. Which, Alice supposed, explained why instead of clearing out as it neared time for the restaurant to become a bar, it got busier. Alice was now running up and down the bar, trying to get everyone served so she could retreat to the back room, get changed and leave without feeling guilty. But, two minutes to five Ian hurried up to her, looking almost as exhausted as she did.
"Alice, love, I need you to work tonight's shift as well," he said, hand to his chest as he seemed to have trouble breathing.
"No, Ian," Alice pleaded. "I barely managed one hour of sleep between last night's shift and this morning. Please don't make me work again."
Ian gave her a pained look that let Alice know that he at least wasn't doing it to torture her. "I know, I'm sorry, but Sophie can't make it, something about food poisoning, and Carol is out of town for her brother's wedding... there's only you."
Alice had to resist the urge to cry from frustration. She was tired, and hungry and irritated and she had to work another nineish hours or until the bar cleared. It was all she could do not to throw the bottle she was holding against the wall. "Fine," she said after taking a deep breath. "But you own me double pay for this, Ian."
"Yes ma'am," he said, giving her a small salute before hurrying back into the crowd and returning to whatever it was he actually did during the night shift. Pressing her lips tightly together to prevent herself from making any terrible comments, Alice forced herself to be as pleasant as possible as she continued to hand out drinks to the ridiculous amount of people hovering around the bar.
Several hours later, Alice was supremely impressed with herself at having managed to not collapse behind the bar. Admittedly in the few and far between quiet moments, she had taken a shot or two of vodka to wake her up. Which she was no regretting as it turned out alcohol didn't really to a lot to wake you up. At least not Alice... it almost seemed to make things worse.
"Hello!" A familiar cheerful voice greeted her.
Blinking through exhaustion and a hint of alcohol, Alice stared at the red headed man in front of her and smiled. "Detective," she greeted in return. "Does this mean you caught the bad guy and are here for a celebratory drink?"
He shook his head though the smile never left his face. "Not quite," he admitted. "I'm here because I think she'll strike again."
Alice frowned. Surely she was overly tired and had heard him wrong. "I thought the police said the crime had been committed somewhere else?"
"The police said that, yeah," he said nodding and looking about the crowded room.
Well what the hell was that supposed to mean? But before Alice could think any more on it she was distracted by a patron wanting ten beers. Really hoping he didn't want them all for himself, Alice took the man's money and handed him his drinks before turning back to the Detective, frowning at him again.
"Tell me if you see the woman from last night," he told her, still looking around the room.
"But I can't remember what she looks like," she reminded him. "How am I supposed to point her out?"
He turned back to her and gave her an encouraging smile. "You'll know her when you see her," he said confidently.
"I don't think that – "Alice cut herself off as a head of curly blonde hair caught her eye. Surely that wasn't the woman from last night though, honestly, how many woman had long curly blonde hair? But the second the blonde woman turned around and made eye contact with her, Alice had to suppress a gasp. "Oh my god," she whispered, prodding the detective in the shoulder repeatedly, not taking her eyes off of the woman. "That's her! But... how did you know she'd come back?"
Detective Smith gently took Alice's hand and lowered it to the bar before he got a bruise from all of her prodding. "They like to stick to the same hunting grounds," he said matter-of-factly. "It only made sense that, if I was right, she'd be back."
Once again, it must have been the exhaustion getting to her. "Come again?" Alice asked, staring at the detective like he was mad which, she strongly suspected, he probably was. "What are you talking about?"
A sly smile spread over John Smith's face and he leaned closer to her. "Want to find out?"
Alice knew that the right answer to that question should have been 'no thank you, crazy person' but something about this detective, if indeed that's what he really was, made her say the opposite, "Yes, actually." Her eyes searched the room for the woman and found her already leading a man towards the back alley. "Wow, that was fast," she said, nodding in the woman's direction. The detective spun around to see the woman leaving and immediately got to his feet.
"We have to go after her," he explained, looking at her expectantly. "Coming?"
"I..." Alice hesitated, he wanted her to go with him? "I can't leave the bar, Ian will kill me... if he doesn't die of a heart attack first."
This caused the detective to pause and frown, but it wasn't long before he seemed to think of a solution. "Come with me," he said reaching around the corner of the bar and pulling her after him before she could protest. Only managing to stammer vague protests of "But" and "wait" Alice finally resolved to follow him. Until Ian showed up.
"What is going on here?" He looked panicky and like he hadn't slept in a week, though Alice knew for a fact that he had slept at least eight hours the previous night.
"I'm sorry mister..." Detective Smith trailed off, but he started up again before Ian could answer, pulling his ID out of his back pocket and showing it to Ian. "I need to take this woman in for questioning about last nights murder."
Ian looked as if he were about to have a stroke. "Alice...? What?"
Before Alice could apologise and explain that everything was fine, Detective Smith interrupted with: "No time!" and pulled her towards the door leading to the back alley, the blonde woman and her potential victim having already exited.
"What are – whoa." Alice blushed and quickly turned her back on the blonde woman and the man she was with as they seemed to be sharing a rather intimate moment.
"I need you to get her away from him," the detective said, his back also turned.
Alice stared at him in shock. "Me?" she asked. "What do you want me to do?"
He shrugged. "I don't know, tackle her?" he suggested as he focused very hard on the door they had just come through.
Another moment of staring in shock but eventually Alice shrugged, turned around, and ran full speed at the blonde woman. As Alice knocked the woman to the ground, the man she had been with slumped against the wall and slid down to rest next to them, eyes closed. Alice focused her attention on the woman beneath her as she pinned her arms to the ground, but the face staring back at her was hardly womanly. Though the eyes were still the same piercing green, the mouth was little more than a cavernous hole, rasping at Alice in anger. In surprise, Alice leapt backwards, inadvertently freeing the woman from her grasp.
"No! Keep a hold of her!" she heard John Smith yell from behind her. But by the time she had recovered from her fright, the blonde woman had run from the alley. With a frustrated sigh, Detective Smith sprinted after her, and Alice, at a loss for what else to do, ran after them both. The woman was impossibly fast but somehow, both of them manage to keep up with her. Alice had never run this hard in her life, and she figured she would only ever run this hard away from danger rather than towards scary sharp mouthed things.
The chase continued in a sort of flux, with the pursuers alternating between right behind the pursued and falling back several metres. To Alice, it didn't seem like this was going anywhere except further across town. The detective managed to grab a handful of the woman's clothing, the first contact with her since Alice had tackled her, but the woman slipped through his fingers and Alice held back a cry of frustration. They were never going to catch her. Alice racked her brain, there had to be away to grab a hold of the woman before their legs gave out from under them. Or at least her legs as it seemed to her that John Smith was completely fine. As she thought, Alice noticed a parked car coming up on her right and made a quick decision that was probably derived from watching far too many films. First one leg landed on the hood of the car, the other landing on the roof, bringing her well above the blonde woman, and Alice leapt off, landing right on top the woman and pinning her to the ground.
"Nicely done," John Smith said as he came to a stop. Alice tried not to glare at him, he wasn't even out of breath!
The woman struggled and managed to roll onto her back, but Alice held her grip, this time prepared for the frightening mouth the woman had. "So," she said, ignoring the snapping and hissing noises the woman was making and looking up at the red-head who was looking everywhere except the snapping woman.. "Feel like explaining what the hell is going on?"
He nodded. "That," he began gesturing at the woman but still not looking at her. "Is a vampire."
Eyebrows raised, Alice looked between the woman and the clearly mad detective. "A vampire," she repeated incredulously.
"Not the sparkly ones, mind you, these ones have dignity... and technically it's a Coronovore from the planet Alpha Crucis," he said waving his hand dismissively. "But it's like a vampire in that it drinks blood to survive."
"So it's an alien," Alice said staring down at the woman beneath her. She wanted to tell this strange detective that that was impossible, but the woman was still snapping at her with her round, sharp mouth. "Why won't you look at her?" she asked, looking back at him and finding him focusing very intently on his bright orange shoes.
"Because he wantssss meeee."
Alice was almost startled enough to let go of the woman... vampire... Coronovore... whatever she was... but managed to maintain her grip this time. She hadn't really expected the blonde to be able to speak what with the weird mouth and all. Though she supposed it couldn't really be described as speaking. More of a semi-understandable hissing. "He what?" she asked, face scrunching in confusion as she looked back up at the detective. "You what?"
"I don't – I mean – she – " he shook his head as if trying to clear his thoughts. "Coronovore's have this thing with their eyes," he explained. "Females especially, and if a male were to look into her eyes, they're instantly under her control."
"Right-o," Alice said nodding, tightening her grip on the Coronovore for a moment as she started struggling again. The Coronovore laughed... or hissed is actually a better word but both Alice and the detective could tell it was a laugh.
"Huuuuunndreds of men have faaaallen befooore me," she said, a wicked kind of joy sparkling in her eyes. "Noooone can denyyyy meeee."
"Yeah, yeah, I get it, you're irresistible," Alice said, not even remotely impressed. If she hadn't known better, Alice could have sworn she heard the Coronovore huff. "Anyway, Mr Smith, if you could get your plan into action so I can get off the crazy person eating woman, that would be really great."
He looked confused for a moment. "Plan?" he asked. Alice was about to yell a few choice words at him but he suddenly seemed to figure out what she meant. "Oh plan! Yes, right." He turned his attention to the Coronovore, or at least as much of his attention as he dared. Alice thought he was looking at her throat, or perhaps her still snapping, circular mouth. "Why are you here?"
"That's your plan?" Alice asked staring at him. But at a stern look from the man, she pressed her lips tightly together to keep from speaking and bowed her head apologetically.
"There hasn't been a Coronovore on earth in over four hundred years," he said as the Coronovore refused to answer. "Why are you here?"
"Whoooo wantssss to knooooow?"
His jaw became taut and he had to resist the urge to make eye contact with the annoying creature which, Alice figured, made him much less intimidating than he hoped to be. "The Doctor."
Alice saw the Coronovore's eyes widen slightly in recognition and she once again found herself what the hell was going on. "What happened to Detective John Smith?" she asked, earning another stern look, forcing her to lower her gaze again.
"Alphaaaaa Cruuucissss isss goooone," the alien explained a hint of sadness in her raspy voice.
"Gone?" the Doctor – as he was apparently called – asked quickly. "What do you mean 'gone'?"
"Consuuuuumed in flaaaaame," she elaborated. "Froooom the waaaar."
"War?" Alice asked, unable to stop her self.
The Doctor turned his attention to her, this time not so stern. "The Coronovores of Alpha Crucis have been at war with the Plasmavores of Altair Zeta for as long as I can remember..." he glanced at the Coronovore. "I guess somebody finally won... but that doesn't explain why here. Why earth?"
The Coronovore seemed reluctant to answer so Alice pushed the woman's wrist hard into the concrete causing the creature to cry out in pain. "Weee neeeeded a neeeeeew plaaaaneeeet," she said, and Alice stopped what she was doing. "Soooome of usssss weeere sssent oooout asss ssscoutssss... I fooound Eaaaarth aand it wasss soooo fuuuull offff fooood. It wooon't beee aroouuund loooong sssooo I diiiiidn't sennnnd woooord. Iiiinsteeeead I ammm puuuutting the huuuumansss to goooood uuuuuusssse."
At this the Doctor had to turn around as he had been about to look the Coronovore in the eye. "What do you mean it won't be around long? This planet still has 4999997989 years left!"
The Coronovore shook her head gleefully. "The ennnnnnd of Eaaaarth coooomess thiiiissss yeeear," she said. "The huuuumansssss sssspeeeak coooonstantlyyyy offf the tweeennttyyyy-twelllllve ennnnd daaaate."
"The what?" The Doctor asked looking at Alice for confirmation.
Alice shrugged. "The 2012 end date... something to do with the Mayan calandar that ends this year," she explained. "It's really nothing at all to worry about, but some moron made a movie about the world ending in 2012 and now – " Alice was cut off as the Coronovore finally managed to wriggle free and swap places with Alice, pinning the girl to the ground. With a twisted grin that looked beyond wrong an the awful mouth of hers, the Coronovore lowered it's head and immediately bit into Alice's neck.
Loud words that will not be repeated here tumbled out of Alice's mouth as pain overwhelmed her and she lost sight of the Doctor. Her vision began to blur and she felt her struggles weakening... was she dying? What did dying feel like? If it was this then... well... Alice supposed it could be worse.
She didn't have more time to contemplate her own death as the Coronovore tore its mouth away from her throat with a screech and burst into millions of golden dust sized pieces.
"You're alright," she heard the Doctor say as he lifted her to her feet, though he sounded very far away and very wrong. She was not alright, she had lost a lot of blood and her vision was all dark around the edges. Looking down at herself, Alice realised her clothes were covered in the golden dust that was once the Coronovore and she couldn't help giggling to herself. "What's so funny?"
"You were wrong," she explained, still giggling, and her voice thick. "They do sparkle." And then she saw nothing.
When she awoke, Alice had no clue where she was. The first thing she noticed was that the ceiling of wherever she was was extremely high up. The second was that she was lying on some sort of small couch thing. And the third was that there was a tight bandage wrapped around her neck. She sat up quickly and looked around her, blinked and rubbed her eyes, and looked around her again. What she saw hadn't changed, but it didn't look any more believable either. The walls looked like some kind of bronze metal, while the rest of the interior looked like it had been made from coral. Except for a large centrepiece that rose from the ground and straight into the ceiling, made of... god only knew what and emitting a bluey green light.
"Woah..." she said aloud, pushing herself to her feet and wandering around.
"Ah good, you're awake," a voice from the other side of the room said. Alice turned and saw the Doctor and wasn't sure what to say or feel so she settled for simply staring at him. He didn't seem to notice. "Normally I would have just patched you up and/or dropped you at a hospital or something," he said. "Or at least I think I would... I'm not used to this version of me." A small frown crossed Alice's features, having no idea what he was on about. "Anyway, I didn't do that cause I didn't want to leave without saying goodbye, or thank you... I don't think I could have stopped her without you."
Alice remembered the blonde Coronovore bursting into a shower of golden dust, much of which she was still covered in. "How did you do that?" she asked. "Kill her, I mean."
The Doctor scratched the back of his head in an almost sheepish manner. "Stabbed her through the chest with the car aerial," he explained. "Hopefully the owner of the car won't mind."
Alice laughed slightly then wished she hadn't as it pulled uncomfortably on the wound in her neck. "Well, this will be fun to explain at work tomorrow... or today... what day is it?"
"You've only been unconscious for a couple of hours," he assured her.
"Goodgood," Alice said absently, trying to process everything that had happened some hours ago. "How did you know what she was?" she asked suddenly, making eye contact with the Doctor. "You knew what she was... why her... her planet was gone... your names not John Smith and you're not a detective but that ID you showed me looked real..."
He pulled the same ID wallet out of his back pocket and flipped it open, showing her a blank piece of paper. "Psychic paper," explained. "It shows you what I want it to show you."
"Of course," Alice said, pressing a hand to her forehead as she tried to piece everything together. "Are you an alien?" she asked finally.
"Yep," he said as casually as if she had asked if his shoes were orange.
"Of course," Alice said again, now pacing backwards and forwards. Her first night of the year and she had tackled one alien, nearly been eaten by that same alien, and then saved by another... she wondered what kind of omen that was for the rest of the year. "Well then..."
The Doctor who had been watching her pace, quickly jumped to the centre piece of the room that Alice now saw was some kind of control console. Was this a spaceship? No... it couldn't be... could it?
"Well, if you want I can take you home now... Or...."
Alice stopped pacing and looked at him questioningly. "Or what?"
"Or... you could come with me."
"Go with you?" she asked. "Go with you where?"
The Doctor spread his arms in a grand gesture. "Anywhere," he said. "Anywhen. This, the TARDIS, can travel anywhere in Time and Space."
So it was a spaceship. Right-o. "I nearly got killed," she pointed out. "By an alien that drinks blood. And you want me to come with you to other places where I may get killed?"
He frowned. "Well... yeah... I guess - "
"Okay," she said, shrugging her shoulders and looking at him expectantly.
"I... what?"
Alice laughed. "I nearly got killed," she said again, this time with an odd sense of excitement in her voice. "My life has never been that exciting. I work as a waitress for god's sake." She realised the Doctor was looking at her with a mixture of confusion and happiness on his face. "Just... yes, I'll go with you."
The Doctor looked at her for a long moment before grinning and nodding as he ran around the console hitting buttons and pulling levers. "Good! Okay!" he said excitedly. "Anywhere you want to go."
"Surprise me," Alice said, stepping back so that she was out of his way. "Though before we go you should probably tell me your name.
"The Doctor," he said in a way that clearly suggested she should know this already.
"No, I know," she said, rolling her eyes. "But Doctor what?"
"Just the Doctor," he said, throwing the final lever down and, with a violent shake that made Alice fall the the ground, the TARDIS moved to it's newest destination.
Review please!