[AU adventure series]

Summary

First episode, Extra Hour: The Doctor is falling on the city called Lidunburgh and she has no choice but fall down. Destined to meet each other, Alex starts to notice strange things happening in her city when the Doctor comes into her life. The majority number of senior citizens is not one of them. [Finished]

Second episode, That Man Who Stole David: Something strange indeed happened on trans-Siberian express in 1973. Something that could have caused a worldwide conflict between the West and the East. Something that would never be published on any media. Never. Something only David Bowie knows. [In progress]


Okay, so I've been thinking here for some time what would happen to the Doctor after the end of Twice Upon a Time (apart from the obvious that might happen, of course. Because frankly falling from the TARDIS without any cushions is quite risky. But it's just my opinion, I might be wrong, sure thing, I'm only human). But as I (and you too, my friends) have seen many cliffhangers like this before, I assumed that the scenario might be sort of like this.

Ah yes, one precaution, or a note, call it as you like. I don't know new Doctor's companions, their names don't mean anything to me, their appearance, their race, they beliefs, their sex, their sexuality – same. So here I'm using 100% original one-episode character called… hmmm… let it be Alex.

One more thing. As everyone on forums is obsessed with new Doctor's body (ah, human obsession with gender) and not concentrated on the only question that has been nagging me since Christmas; the city the Doctor is falling on will be Lidunburgh (100% original green city).

Enjoy the story!

P.S. To get the better idea of how Jodie walks and talks watch Adult Life Skills. Broadchurch is good but not enough.


A woman in her early thirties looked at her dog with a desperate sigh which can only make a lonely woman with erratic work, existential crisis and two extra kilos she couldn't lose whatever she did. The dog squeezed its eyes, laying on its mat unmovingly.

"Okay, I got it, you don't want to go anywhere, you just want to sleep. That's fine for me, I respect your doggy's right. Then I'll just go for a walk alone. Bye, Alvin." She grabbed her backpack with only important stuff, that is a small packet of crisps, notebook and a pen, and got out of her house. When she looked around to close the door she saw that Alvin changed his mind and followed her. Argh, what a dog.

Fresh late evening air shook her short wavy black hairs, and the woman accepted it with great pleasure. All day she had been indoors, looking forward to this very moment when the work was done and the customer was kind of happy. Well, he wasn't happy, so she'd promised him to make another logotype tomorrow, which was only in two hours.

She saw her neighbour sitting in his chair on the front porch of his house. He simply gaped at the sky, his eyes not moving, his body protected from the cold with only red sweater.

"Hi, Mr Collins! Looking for falling stars?" She saw him every evening doing the same thing, just sitting and waiting, sitting and sometimes sipping a coffee from his thermos cup. He was one of her the most favourite neighbours on the street she used to live because he didn't pretend to be a normal pensioner like the others.

"Yes, Alex." His answer was short and clear.

She glimpsed at the sky full of grey dirty clouds. No stars, no moon, not a clear spot. It wasn't the sky to look at tonight, she concluded. But with Mr Collins, it was kind of tradition to stargaze no matter what was the weather. The man just had problems with sleep, it wasn't an uncommon thing at his age after all.

"If you find one can you make one tiny wish for me?" Alex smirked sarcastically.

"No, Alex."

That was offensive somewhat. But then she thought how many times she had asked for the same when she'd been in the mood for a short evening walk. This man had been all the time here, she must be grateful he hadn't told her to get out in a rude manner.

"Ah, never mind. Anyway, good luck to you."

"Yes, Alex."

Today she wasn't going to the centre of the city and back. The dog joined her. Besides her soul wished for something completely different: peace, tranquillity and nature. Her hit was a park down the street. So, putting her earphones on, she hit the road, listening to the magical riff of the aggressive guitar and loud drums.


The air ragged the Doctor's old black worn clothes fiercely, the echo of the Tardis blowing up caught up with her when a strong wind rolled her face down. Aha, a city! Wonderful, lovely, beautiful, sparkling, stunner, great, remarkable, marvellous. Fast approaching, too. What an exciting way to start your new life!

…or end it?

Right, she reminded herself, there was no time to waste the time. The new time, the time she had only got, the time she didn't have. She wouldn't give the daleks a pleasure of smacking herself into the tarmac. She would prove herself one more time that life can be a beautiful thing sometimes and someone needed to save it. So focus for the sake of the Universe!

There was no parachute, as far as she knew the previous one hadn't worn them in his trousers, and there was no secret ultimate technique to stop her falling so drastically. Well, there was one technique, but it wasn't so secret. Though she had some doubts whether or not she would survive that.

Except, what chances there had been that she'd be falling from her Tardis? In the meaning of the Universe 100% so… No, it didn't fit. Something was wrong in her logic chain. Something…

No time!

The Doctor scanned the earth. She looked for water; no, not water, it's a bad idea to find water in the first place, she had read it somewhere, it's the same as looking for the asphalt which is not a great idea, it's a straight road to the coffin. So, not looking for it anymore.

Oh, everything was so black! A big light blob of the city was the only thing she could identify without a doubt! And she was still cooking, her eyesight was unfocused, her left and right system were a total haywire.

She tried to move herself a bit on the left to try and find something soft there but lost her balance. The wind mercilessly rolled her around, the image of the Tardis, earth, city, lights, clouds mixed all together. Calm down, calm down, calm down! She stretched out her limbs in different directions. That's right, softly, softly, catchee monkey. No need for rashness here. She gently turned to the left.

That's when she spotted a park with a convenient grove of old pines.

Oh, brilliant!

Brilliant indeed!

The Doctor dived towards there trying not to be caught up in another wind trap. She couldn't have another mistake, any wrong move and she might have two regenerations in a row. That would be just embarrassing. And wrong. And sad. And…

Focus, Doctor! You're falling!

Twenty-one seconds to land.


Alex was always mesmerised by the look of a small grove of massive pines in the park. It was something so unusual in them: the size of them was ginormous for an average scots pine, their branches compounded between each other creating a wooden roof that blocked the day and night light so it was always dark in there. They were like total aliens to this place. It was better to stay away from them.

Alex took her earphones away in the pocket and listened to the sound of nature. She was greeted with ominous silence. That was... quite unsettling frankly. There was not a living soul in the park except for her and Alvin.

But then she looked at Alvin's calmed snout that had a short fallen branch in its teeth and smiled. Nah, she was just paranoiac. Nothing wrong could ever possibly happen in her peaceful neighbourhood.

"It's just a boring city which primer population is senior citizens. Am I right, boy?"

The dog gave her a branch which she simply dismissed. "Nah, Alvin. You are a big boy. You need a bigger branch than that."

They were walking down the park paths, she was enjoying a company of small bushes and clean benches. She was watching Alvin looking for another branch but there were only small ones. She wasn't enjoying the proximity of the pine grove. There was just something eerie today about this not so little spot of the park.

"How about we go to the pond, heh?" Alex asked her dog.

The pines crackled all at once. A short loud ugh followed.

"Alvin?" She looked at her dog in alarm. What was that?!

The dog perked it's ears up. Alex tried to do the same but the evolution let her do that only for less than an inch. She didn't hear anything abnormal. Her dog apparently did.

"Alvin, no!"

Alvin didn't listen to his mistress as he suddenly rushed into the darkness she was much afraid of.

"Come back! Please, don't make me follow you!" She called him from the path but he was away ahead of her, hidden in the woods of the grove. "Please!"

She ran after him, regretting that she forgot a lead before the walk. She was out of breath before she even reached the third row of pines. "Alvin? Alvin!"

But there was not a hint that he was anywhere close. There was nothing to see. There was nothing to hear…

Except for someone clearly moaning in the depth of the woods.

Alex turned on the torch of her smartphone. Her hand was shaking violently. The shadows were playing a trick with her but she was blocking their game with constant repeating of swearing in her head. She was moving towards the only sound she could hear and frankly she didn't like that idea. But her dog might be there. He damn must be there.

"Alvin?!" She called for him again. It was funny but she could swear it was getting lighter. Probably another trick of the pine grove.

She froze on a spot. She could hear her heart beating for two. It was getting cold there and her mouth puffed a steam. And someone had just clearly groaned "no". That must be a trick of the wind. That…

"No, not Alvin. I'm not a chipmunk."

Oh my god that was a human voice! Not a voice of an evil forest spirit, a very human and a very soft voice!

Alex stepped more confidently now. A loud bang in the sky made her look up: no, what at first she'd thought was some kind of trick of light, shadow and god knew else appeared to be a hole in the wooden roof. She could see from where she stood an orange light behind a dirty cloud. Something must have fallen from the sky to do the hole like that. Something heavy. Something…

"Heya."

With a startle, Alex turned around: in the roots of pine was laying a woman. The woman gave her one last squint before she lost her consciousness.

Alex was too shocked to do anything. There was a woman. In a dark spooky grove. In strange clothes. With no reasons to be here. With… Oh, who was she kidding she matched this description as well!

"Hello?" The woman didn't answer. Oh god, if she was dead… "Hello?!" Alex leaned closer to her body.

No. No, she wasn't! Her chest was going up and down, she was alive!

The light went down giving Alex a startle.

She peeked at her phone which was – sure, how else would it be? – dead.

In the dim light, Alex could see that the woman was all in scratches and bruises, her right cheek wore a big cut. But nothing seemed to be broken and there was no blood. Probably. Apart from it, her clothes looked like they didn't fit her, and they were smelling like something burnt. Alex craned her neck up to the hole in the roof. Back to the woman. But could it be?..

Alvin barked at her somewhere on her left, though she couldn't see him. Right, they needed to get out of here, this place was just doomed. Alex put her arms around the woman's chest and dragged her toward what she thought might be the way out. The dog very soon caught up with her, proudly dragging a massive pine branch.


Dragging an unconscious body in the middle of the night was far from easy. When Alex reached her street she'd come up with thousand explanations why she was doing that. But when she reached her home it appeared that every senior citizen in her neighbourhood had finally found some cure from insomnia. There was not a person on the street except for her. Even Mr Collins was looking not up to the sky but down to the earth with his eyes completely shut.

Alex opened the lock with a key in her left hand, almost dropping the woman in her right. She pushed the door with her leg, letting the dog come in first. The couch, the last destination, was finally in her sight.

She dropped the woman without making her comfortable or anything. Her back hurt like hell, her hands weren't exactly strong, her legs were shaky. She wasn't a sporty person.

"Okay. Next step, next step. Ambulance? Ambulance. Yeah." Alex mumbled under her nose. She put her phone on the charge and went to the kitchen to put the kettle. On the way to it, in the hall, she pushed the button to turn the light but it didn't work. Then she returned and tried it again only to find out that it really didn't work. She poked her head out of the window.

There wasn't any light anywhere at all.

Her phone wasn't charging.

"You must be kidding me," Alex breathed through clenched teeth.

She came back to the living room where she left the woman on the couch. She turned her around, brought a pillow from her bedroom and put it under her head, then she get rid of her burnt oversized coat and man shoes. She brought her blanket. She didn't know what else the woman might need to get better.

Alex looked out of the window. If that woman laying on her couch had really fallen from the sky then someone must have seen it. Mr Collins might know what had happened. But he had dozed off and she didn't want to bother him. Hell, if that was a plane, by this time everyone must know it.

She didn't know what time it was, probably an hour had passed before the lights turned on. She finally managed to put the kettle on and make a green tea for herself, the phone started charging. Alex put her mug on a desk and turned on her computer. If there was an air crash, then everyone must talk only about it. And if everyone talked about it, she could find some useful phone numbers and tell the press that one passenger had been lucky to survive. Maybe they knew what to do next.

Nothing.

Not a word about a plane hitting the earth. Not in the sky of Lidunburgh, not in the sky of the globe whatsoever. Not today. A disturbing frown appeared on Alex's face. She glimpsed at the staircase where down below was the living room. Well, the woman couldn't have appeared just out of the blue in the sky.

That's when the idea struck her head. Maybe she was a loony. And she hadn't fallen from the sky, she had climbed a pine and had fallen from the broken branch… No, it didn't fit. There was no mental hospital anywhere close and pines were too high for any creature to climb on the top of them.

So who the hell was she?!


The Doctor opened her eyes and breathed in heavily. Everything hurt. The whole existing hurt – that's how the regeneration aftermath felt. She couldn't bring herself upwards, she couldn't move her hand, her nerves in fingers tickled with a new energy that was superseding the old one. That was nasty. But that wasn't the first time she felt like this.

She moved her stoned neck to look around. The place she was in looked like a living room and she appeared to be lying on the thing called a couch. That's when she put two pieces together and assumed what must have happened to her after she'd knocked off.

She needed to speak to the woman who saved her. She needed to tell her that everything was fine, a doctor wasn't needed, that it's her daily routine to fall from the sky with a blowing blue box on her back. And she needed something to eat. Gosh, she was so hungry!

"Hey, you're awake!" She heard a voice somewhere near. Then, she saw a face above her, thin, with sharp cheeks, wry long nose with left wing higher than the right, green eyes and a black nest for birds in the place where must have been hair. Or it might have been her hair, just very sloppy. "I tried to call the ambulance for you but the line seems to be dead."

"Yeah, I a–" a golden smoke left her mouth a second after she opened it. So she was still in the process, renewing on molecular levels.

"What was that?"

"Excessive regeneration energy," she said surprised. "Don't worry, it will pass in a day or so." The Doctor couldn't but notice how she felt relieved all of a sudden, the pain eased away, and she sat on the couch. "I feel… younger." She tried her limbs out, putting her hands up and down, bending her elbows and knees. She jumped on her legs but they didn't hold her so she fell back to the couch. "No, no, I'm not me yet, I have him in me. The old me. I'm still…" She looked at her hands. Where was a golden ring there was nothing today. Where was a hand with long elegant fingers there was a softer version, silkier. "cooking."

"Excuse me, who are you? What is excessive regeneration energy? What do you mean old you?"

The Doctor gave the woman a meaningful look. She was confused and afraid. She probably had many questions since she'd found her under the wood. And, well, as she saved her life she truly deserved some answers.

"Ah, sorry, my bad. I didn't have a chance to introduce myself, did I?" She gingerly run her hand in her hair. "Name is the Doctor. The race is Gallifreyan. That's all you need to know because that's all there is to know. What planet is it anyway? Your cushions are awful. The couch is just terrible. No, hang on, let me guess it." The Doctor put her tips of middle fingers to her temples. "It's… Earth. North England. The city is…"

"Liduburgh?"

"Lidunburgh! Yes!" The Doctor exclaimed and stopped. Lidunburgh? Seriously? "No, sorry never heard about Lidunburgh. Lovely name for a city to live, though. Bad place to die. Good for me that I'm not dead."

"Look, who are you?"

"I've told you, I'm the Doctor."

"I'm serious!"

"And I'm deadly serious. Who are you?"

"Alex."

"Alex, it was very nice to meet you. Tomorrow, I'll leave a winning lottery ticket in your mailbox, don't forget to check it. Bye." With that word, the Doctor jumped on her legs, took her coat from the arm of the couch and headed to what she presumed must be a way out. She felt already dizzy and tired from a talk with her saviour, she could pass out any minute now.

She reached the door and tried to open it, only to find that it's locked.

"Wait!" She heard Alex's voice approaching. "You can't go out there! You need a medical help!"

"Well, I can't be locked in here! I need, I need…" She felt lost all of a sudden.

What did she need? Nobody waited for her to be picked up. There was no one to impress with little fancy dots, no one who she could charge with emotions and a pleasant tickling of adventure spirit. It was a fresh start, new chapter in her book. And she had no one to share it with.

She was alone.

"I need the TARDIS." Yes, that's right, that's wise. First things first, she needed to sleep off the regeneration aftermath. Then she would have plenty of time to think something up.

She found the key hanging on the nail and unlocked the door to the outside.

There was an old man blocking her way out who gave her a startle.

"Hi, Mr Collins!" Alex greeted him with enthusiasm on.

"Hi, Alex." The man lacked emotions as he greeted her back. "Who is your new friend?"

"Oh, I think she is…"

"About to leave." The Doctor ended her sentence and forced her way through the man.

It was early morning outside, the Doctor looked around the street. A typical street with two-storey houses made of bricks. She turned her head to the left and almost exclaimed from happiness. The TARDIS was here, waiting for her devotedly.

She fidgeted in her trouser pockets in search of the key and, having found the one, she put it in the lock. The door opened invitingly, the Doctor felt her body started trembling from sudden exhaustion. Finally, she would find some peace in her own safe place.

"Why did you enter an old police box?" Alex questioned her, opening the doors widely.

The Doctor put her hand over her face to hide her eyes from a sudden light of the waking up sun. She turned around to meet with a blank wall.

The old man, Mr Collins, looked rather surprised. When he met her eyes he averted his and went back to home.

"Well, I thought it was my TA–" the Doctor hadn't a chance to end her excuse when her nerves sent a joint of pain. She dismissed a hand that stretched to help her. Her eyelids were too heavy to hold them, the head swirled around. "I'm alright! I'm alright. Everything is under control. Don't call doctors. Don't. Panic." The Doctor managed to say when the world went black.


Alex was left bluntly with a woman in her hands on the street. Again. But now Mr Collins was watching her with great interest which was somehow unsettling. She hooked the Doctor's hand around her shoulder and put her hands around her waist. That wasn't a comfortable position for dragging. But then again, her profession wasn't exactly dragging women in delirium state. And about that last thing, Alex hoped this madness of hers would wear off somehow on its own.

"Alex, is that woman your friend?" She looked up to see that Mr Collins helped her opening the door to her house.

"No, I've found her in that spooky dark pine grove in the park. You know, the one you told me to stay away from." Alex smiled bitterly.

"Okay, Alex." He nodded lightly and headed back to his house.

Odd.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Yes, Alex?" Mr Collins turned around. He was back in his nonchalant mood.

"Haven't you seen anything weird in the sky today?"

"No, Alex."

Strange. Very strange.

Alex pushed the Doctor back into her house and closed the door.

Right. Ambulance. It's about the time her phone was charged and the line was fixed.

Having had the Doctor on her couch once again, she took her phone from the coffee table in the living room. She called 999.

"Umm, hi. I have a woman here who is constantly losing her consciousness. She also has this cut on her face which…" In the corner of her eye, Alex noticed that something wasn't right. It took her several seconds to understand what it was. "Umm, sorry, no cuts. No bruises, too." She gulped nervously, checking her face again and again. But there had been one, she'd seen it! "Please, just help me, I don't know what to do with her. She looks like she was in a crash."

"We'll help you, Alex." A soothing calm voice over the line told her. "Please, stay where you are and don't worry."

"Thanks a lot." She sighed heavily. Very soon, everything will be alright again.

But for now, she still needed to make that logotype perfect for her customer.


Hey, tell me what you think about the beginning, I'm always nervous (and excited) to make those! What do you think about Alex and the Doctor? What part did you like the most? What do you expect from the series 11?