The Walls of Time
By: D.H. Mercer
Chapter: the first
On a Dark stormy night Biff Deegan wanted a Taco…. No wait sorry that's a different story.
Alright so this is my author's note: This story is a love story so if you don't like the mushy stuff stay away. And yes there is an original character of my own creation with whom the Doctor falls in love and yes it is based off of me because lets face it OC's usually are and any writer who claims other wise is generally lying (at least I don't see how it's possible). I put at least a tiny bit of myself in all of my characters and yes that includes the male variety only… well kind of awkward to explain that one. I make them like how I would want to be if I were a male like I do with my female characters only I'm a girl so it's not that much of a leap. I'm going to be doing something different than the last Doctor who story which I posted all at once.
I have finished this story! Having said that I'm still in the process of editing my later chapters, both ink and paper is something I don't have a lot of so editing while reading it off the computer screen will take me longer because I can't just refer back to page so and so to make sure I've not said the same thing more than once so bear with me please. I'm also employing this method to see how well the readers like it so far. If I don't get very many posts I'll think no one is really that interested and chuck it out the window… not really because I have at least one or two fans out there so I'll post it for them. I am not an author (not yet… technically I consider having my name in print as author material for now I'm only a writer but I digress…) who needs reviews to thrive as I write about what I would like to read – mainly that's how I began writing in the first place only I didn't know it was called fan fiction at the time. Too bad I threw away my Star Trek: TNG, Lois and Clark, and Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Universe stories (nope wait a minute that last one is still floating around in my filing drawer somewhere – in the bottom luckily as I wrote it when I was twelve).
I'll be adding any further notes that may come up down the line at the top of my story because honestly who reads the bottom ones? I generally want to get to the next chapter as quickly as possible because I'm so enthralled with the story… well that's just me. I love this story and yes there will be a sequel but I'm giving the life priorities that I've been ignoring for a while now priority (like getting a job… doing dishes… laundry… having a bath… okay too much information moving on….) I also want to try and get my Highlander the series fan fiction I finished a few years ago transcribed (put on the computer) so I can edit it and get it published. My mom (who hated the highlander series) actually showed interest in reading it and she's the one who keeps after me to put all of my talents into writing an actual book but maybe someday just not yet. I have a million tons of research to do and right now I have no clue where to find it or how to go about finding it. I'll stick to fan fiction while my real stories percolate and maybe some day they'll finish brewing but for now I practice my craft on these tasty morsels (okay so it's more like a full four corse meal so shoot me). Which is where, anyone who hasn't already given up on me, namely you come in. This is not betaed so if you see any spelling or grammatical foepas (like the word I just misspelled) please feel free to tell me. And last (probably) but certainly not least the sequel... is about Rose and the human Doctor but unfortunately I haven't figured out how to save Donna yet so sorry guys (or girls p.c. sucks) who hate what the PTB did to her, I'll probably do the same.
Warnings: Yes there will be mentions of the s (s.e.x.) word later but I don't do graphic I like to leave enough for the imagination. I don't use language except arse or h. (rarely) and the ocassional Oh my Gosh! (and not in the valley girl sense of the word.) I only use the lords name when I'm accutally desperate enough to pray not as a curse. I usually use darn instead of it's more proliphic going to say that one out loud. I do not use the F word or the S word and I'll leave those to the imagination as well. For those of you who have younger readers I will post a new warning on the chapters that have move laking in them.
Intermission: I don't own anything but... well I do own everything but what I don't own, what's yours is yours and what's mine is mine you should be able to tell the difference you PTBees you.
Summary: The Doctor finds Fiona, a quirky human female, in his search for one last good-bye to his beloved Rose Tyler but the transmission that only she can hear is killing her. Can the Doctor say farewell in time to save her life? Will Fiona go on to be his newest companion or his last? Did the Tardis really draw him there to only see Rose one last time or for an entirely different reason?
Still interested? Well hold on tight because here we go….
Kudos (by the way) to anyone who got the Biff Deegan reference above, Murder by the Book is Robert Heys' best movie! (and no I don't plan on writing a fan fic... anytime soon... or ever... well...) Sorry still in Doc W mode.
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The Doctor's Newest Companion
The Middle Starts Now!
Chapter 1
By: VaniDot
He had never needed anyone before, granted he liked having people around to cut the loneliness of his singular existence. He needed her though, the only woman he'd ever let get close and she was gone. Gone but not forgotten, he could never forget Rose Tyler. No he could by no means fail to remember despite how hard he tried but even making himself human hadn't let him miss her completely which had only served to make the pain of losing her all the harder after he'd switched back to Time Lord again. His last companion, Martha Jones, who had opted to return home after a small turn about the universe, hadn't helped heal his pain though by no means was it her fault.
He was the one to blame; like everything else, it was his burden to carry. Rose Tyler wouldn't have even been in trouble if it wasn't for him. Sucked into another dimension, cut off from everyone and everything she had ever known. His only consolation was that she had her mum, Jackie, and her best friend, Mickey Smith to keep her from being friendless on the other side of the barrier that parted them. He couldn't help but wonder if Rose was happy. The day they said good-bye she had told him that she was thinking about joining their version of Torchwood. He wondered if she had. Had she moved on with her life? Had she been able to forget him easier than he had been able to forget her?
Even in his sleep he wasn't free of her, because in his sleep he dreamed and when he dreamed he saw Rose. They had had a life together, a happy one with children even. It was a dream from which he always woke up in tears. He was a man for Orion's sake, men don't cry; for that matter neither did Time Lords. He was almost glad that Martha wasn't there to see him blubbering like a little child. He couldn't say that he had really done much of anything since Martha left. He floated through space in his Tardis miserable and alone…forever alone. Perhaps that was best; no one else would ever get hurt because of him.
"Doctor!" The unmistakable voice of Rose Tyler called from what seemed like right next to him. He sat up in bed and looked around his room. There was no one there and yet… "Doctor," She said like a faint whisper over and over again until she was there standing in his room, a sight for sore eyes.
"Rose!" He said jumping out of bed and ran to take her in his arms but he passed through her as if she were a ghost. He looked down at his vacant arms and turned back to face her. She smiled and shook her head sadly.
"I found a way to broadcast a signal through but I'm afraid that's all I am. I must speak with you, please find me. Hurry, there isn't much time left." Rose said before vanishing all together. The Doctor blinked, tears streaming down his face. When he opened his eyes he found himself still lying in bed. He sighed wiping his damp face as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He put his head in his hands doing nothing to stop the tears that fell. Each night for the past two weeks he'd had the same dream though he hadn't done anything about it. Why should he, it was just a dream like the ones where he and she had children and lived happily ever after, not that he could have children as a Time Lord. He knew there was no use trying to find her, that it was just his own private hell and yet… What if she truly had found a way?
He jumped out of bed and threw his overcoat on over his jimjams and raced for the console room. He was a Time Lord after all maybe he could finally say what he'd tried to tell her before that Supernova collapsed on him. All that for a girl he barely even knew but he would give anything to see her face, to tell her… He loved her. Poor Martha, he knew how she felt about him though she had never stood a chance. The Doctor flipped switches, pressed buttons, cranked levers on his console and yet… nothing happened. There hadn't been a transmission, not really. Just as he had known there wouldn't be but he had tried anyway, it couldn't hurt… right? In his frustration he slammed his fist into the console. He frowned shaking the stinging sensation out of his hand.
"That was a silly thing to do." A female with an American accent said close by. He spun to face the intruder and saw a beautiful woman with dark curly hair dangling about her face. She wore a floor length black dress of some kind with a black watch plaid strung about her shoulders. Her blue eyes sparkled with amusement as she shook her head at his foolishness. He realized that not only was he absently still shaking his hand, he was also staring at her with his mouth gapping open.
"I'm sorry who are you and how did you get on board my ship?" The Doctor asked letting his arm drop to his side. She shook her head again and stared back.
"I'm pretty sure I'm still home asleep in my bed. So the question I put to you is how did you get inside my dream? Though I suppose one could theorize that I'm in yours. Or perhaps we're in each other's; we could be sharing the same dream. What do you think?" She mused causing lines to crease her brow.
"I'm pretty sure I'm awake." The Doctor answered. She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
"Well that is an interesting turn of events. One minute I'm walking towards an oak tree anticipating an intimate rendezvous with the most handsomest man in the universe or probably just a figment of my imagination. The next thing I know I'm standing here being berated for trespassing. I think I'll wake up now so I can get back to the dream you so rudely interrupted." She said heading for the bulkhead of the ship. "It was nice meeting you though." She added raising her hand as she walked away. He shook his head and frowned.
"Wait!" He said making her stop to look at him. "I never got your name." He said not thinking to offer his.
"No we didn't introduce ourselves did we. I'm…" She began before disappearing into a shroud of mist. He shook his head in disappointment and turned back to the console only to find himself rolling over in bed. He was drenched in sweat and panting like he had just run a marathon.
"That's different." He muttered rolling onto his back. Who was she that girl and where had she come from? In all the dreams he'd had about Rose Tyler that girl had never been a part of them until now. What, if anything at all, did she have to do with Rose? There was something about her; something odd, in the back of his mind telling him that she was no ordinary human, and yet… "Who are you and why do I feel as though we've met somewhere before?" He asked out loud though, as always, he was alone. Unsure if he was having another dream within a dream he decided that the answers could wait until morning. He rolled over and went back to sleep. The woman's sparkling blue eyes still laughed at him as he drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
Fiona McDonald woke up, just as she had for the past two weeks, with a headache. A splitting headache to be exact the kind a church bell might have after being rung twelve times in a row. The gonging in her head matched the sound of church bells though as far as she could remember no one had rung her bell. She could sympathize with the atom and what it had gone through when they split it to make the atomic bomb.
Every night it was the same thing; every night she had that dream, and every night she woke up with the same excruciating headache. She knew that somehow they had to be tied together but how she wasn't so sure. The dream was always the same, the same blond girl asking Fiona to help her find someone. Someone called 'the doctor'. Every time the blond girl would vanish before Fiona could ask her any questions. Who was this 'Doctor' that she wanted to find? And why had she picked Fiona to aid in the search? Why not someone else?
Fiona had what some paranormal fanatics might call psychic powers but she had never been contacted by the dead and she couldn't tell the future. She had never had encounters with ghosts, for which she was grateful. She did on occasion pick up on the stray thought every now and then. Perhaps that was why she liked her old books better than people, she could choose when to read them or not. Whenever she was in a crowded place her head was filled with so much noise she wanted to scream and run away.
Fiona couldn't help but wonder if that was what the blond girl, Rose Tyler was. A ghost or perhaps a person whose thoughts of her doctor lover just kept intruding on her mind. Since she had never had to deal with ghosts or spirits of the like Fiona assumed it was the latter. If that where the case though why had Rose asked her for help? From the little that Rose had been able to tell her, Fiona gathered that Rose was 'stuck' someplace. Like something straight out of a science fiction novel or a movie, Rose had explained that she was stuck in another dimension that existed parallel with hers. Those things Rose had found the time to explain but not the time to explain why she wanted Fiona's help or who this Doctor was that she wanted to find.
Fiona sighed in frustration and sat up in bed giving her head a chance to acclimate to the change in altitude. She passed out once before when the headaches first started; she had tried to rise too suddenly after just waking up. Feeling the throbbing settle into a dull ache instead of the sharp intruding jackhammer she stood up and made her way downstairs towards the kitchen where she kept the pain relievers. Why she had never considered doing so before on her previous trips to the kitchen, she didn't know. Fiona took the bottle of Ibuprofen back upstairs and set it down on the nightstand beside her bed. She kept a bottle of water beside her bed for when she got thirsty it only made sense to keep the over the counter pain relievers there as well.
She took the pills and lay back against her pillow waiting for the medicine to kick in so she could get back to sleep. She wondered who the man was who appeared to her in this particular dream. The man was the one thing, the only thing, which differed in all the weeks she'd been having them. Was he just another drifter like all the others whose thoughts intruded on her – whether she wanted them to or not? If he was then how had he heard and interacted with her? He had seen her, talked to her; none of the other drifters had ever done that. Was he 'the Doctor' Rose had asked to help her find? Considering all the possibilities made her head hurt worse. Sci-Fi had never been her favorite genre though when she did browse the section she was only ever drawn to time travel.
Fiona shook her head and sighed, the closest thing to a friend she had was a girl in another dimension that visited her between the hours of midnight and two o'clock. The worst part was their friendship was killing her! Slowly but surely Fiona could feel little bits of herself drifting off into nothingness. She was certain. More than she had been sure of anything else in her life, except maybe her love for the Time Keeper. Every time she had one of those headaches she could feel a little more of herself slipping away. Some might say it was just a figment of her imagination like the Time Keeper but she knew she was dying. She also knew Rose's pain and her love for the Doctor. Despite the threat to her own life, Fiona wanted to help not because she was convinced it would make the headaches go away but because she wanted Rose to have the chance to say goody-bye.
Fiona had not had the chance to say good-bye when her mother passed away in childbirth which, in the short time she had lived, was the one thing that bothered her the most. People needed the chance to say good-bye and Rose was no different even if it meant that Fiona's life was endangered in the process. It wasn't like she had anything to live for anyway. She could see through any guy who even showed an interest in her and knew that they weren't interested in giving her what she wanted in a relationship; even Tom, who had been more of a brother than a friend to her, as well as his sister Jane were only really interested in what she could do for them.
Sure she had people who would attend her funeral when she passed away, but Fiona felt alone in the world because she was different from everyone else. She had never known her birth father and her mother had died in childbirth; even her foster parents, the only people to understand her and love her anyway, were dead. Dead, the story of her life, everyone she had ever gotten close to was dead. Perhaps that was why she kept Jane and Tom at arm's length, for their own sakes so they wouldn't wind up going the same way. The only hope she had of not winding up like all the others was to find the Doctor and pray that, by helping Rose, he could help her as well. In life there were never any guarantees.
The pain begin to ease and Fiona allowed herself to drift off hoping to dream of the Time Keeper as she had before Rose interrupted; began to fade away though the image of that other man interfered. She sighed and closed her eyes trying to block his image from her mind calling the oak tree back into the foreground but it didn't work, he wouldn't leave her alone. Something about him bothered her; he also intrigued and frightened her at the same time. There was something oddly familiar about him as well. Unlike the Time Keeper, who always vanished before she could get close, that man's image haunted her.
Like the locket and the skeleton key that were the only things she had of her mother's, Fiona got a similar feeling about the man from her dream. What could the man and her mother's keepsakes have to do with anything? Was the connection, like everything else in her life seemed to be, just a figment of her imagination? She had always had a vivid imagination, even as a child but unlike most people it had gotten stronger instead of waning as she grew up. At first she just tried to hide it but after failing miserably at the attempt she turned it to her advantage instead and became an author.
A writer of science fiction no less, at least that was what Jane called it though Fiona would have considered it a fantasy. All of her silly dreams and far-fetched ideas she wrote down so Jane could publish the thing. Jane's family owned a publishing house, though not very many copies of her book had been sold. Thanks to Jane's incessant personality she convinced most of her friends and acquaintances to buy the book but Fiona was sure it was just taking up space on a shelf, gathering dust on a coffee table, or being used as a door stop rather than being read and cherished. A few sci-fi buffs had purchased the book and a few asked for her autograph when they found out that she had written it. As far as she knew their bookstore was the only one to carry it. Fiona couldn't compare herself to Jane Austen or Agatha Christie, two of her favorite novelists, but at least she was an author though more by Jane's designs than her own.
Her book 'Impractical Dreamer' was an amalgamation of fantasy and science fiction; everything from talking trashcans bent on destroying the universe to mannequins trying to turn the human race into slaves with nothing but a lonely god to stand in their way. Her Lonely God was the one she was trying to rendezvous with before Rose had disturbed her fantasy; she was hoping that she would finally be able to meet him instead of just having him disappear when she tried to approach. That was the most frustrating part of her dreams of the Time Keeper, she knew he was waiting for her but every time she got to the oak tree he was no longer there.
She had never met him but she knew he was good and kind. Her 'Lost Prince', as she had called him in her novel to keep the name Time Keeper to herself, was a weary time traveler hundreds of years old and just as lonely as she was, longer at least if not more so. It was almost as if his pain and loneliness was calling out to her, begging for companionship. She laid awake willing sleep to come hoping to dream of him but he never came.
A suave dashing hero filled her dreams instead; he too was very old and yet unlike her Terrible Angel, Captain Jack was a human being; a man who had been given immortality. Stories of him filled her head and it was almost as though she were living it through his eyes. She saw him as he grew into manhood on his home world, a human not born on earth somewhere in the fifty-first century. She saw him join the Time Agency and leave five years later when they stole his memories. She saw him meet the man from her earlier dream only with a different face yet somehow she knew it was him. It was almost sad watching Jack's life inch slowly on eon after eon until at last he gave his all millions of years in the future. Such a sad end to a glorious life, but he was glad to finally sleep, forever. Even as the dream faded and another one started Fiona cried for the Face of Boe.