A/N: Happy early Halloween! This is a Halloween special I wrote for fun - part two will be posted tomorrow night!
For those of you who don't know me... this is a self-insert character! Juuuust so you know what you're getting into. XD Here we go, another real-world girl getting involved with the Doctor. This is me coping with the fact I couldn't dress up as Ten this year.
Enjoyyyy! I'm off to a Halloween bash with my roommate B-)
October 31st, 2014.
I cruised along the back roads in my car, one hand on the steering wheel and the other reaching for my phone to check the time. Ten-thirty… not too late. I couldn't stop my grin; good. For once I wouldn't be missing a party. I really had to suck up to my boss and bust my ass tonight to get cut early, but it had been worth it.
One of my good friends was throwing a big Halloween bash at her place out in Scarborough. I wasn't the biggest fan of large parties (usually I barely knew anyone and compensated by drinking too much so I'd be more outgoing), but tonight a lot of cool people were going. Only the people I was friends with were actually staying the night, so it was going to be a blast once things died down a bit.
My grin grew. It was going to be fun seeing what everyone dressed up as. I was looking forward to Matt in particular; he'd had a few choice words for us when we told him we'd steal his beer and kick him out if he didn't show up in costume. Over the past few days he'd been texting me for costume ideas and cursing me out when I sent him back pictures of Chippendales dancers.
Even if I hadn't already known where the house was, it would've been easy to find; there were nine or ten cars already parked out front. Several lit jack-o-lanterns were placed on the front steps and fake cobwebs were hung from the trees. I could hear the music the second I parked and opened my car door, and I had to lean my head back and laugh. Of course Sarah would be blasting the Ghostbusters theme of all things. Other people would be playing shitty pop music, but she was using the cheesiest Halloween stuff she could find.
Feeling considerably more relaxed—this was going to be fun, I could feel it—I got out of the car, straightening my own costume and ruffling my long brown hair a bit. For a moment I scanned the driveway to figure out who was here. Matt's car was pulled way over to the side; Ryan's was behind it. Sarah's roommates were parked in front of the garage doors, and a few of the other cars I didn't recognize.
Mentally prepared now, I trotted up to the front door, pulled it open and plunged into the dimly lit house. The music immediately enveloped me; some of the partygoers turned at my entrance, and a few people I recognized waved.
"Brittany!" A female voice called.
I turned to see Sarah running over to me, all smiles. I took one look at her and threw my arms up in excitement—she was decked out in dark robes with a red and yellow scarf, her normally straight blonde hair now very wavy.
"Hermione!" I greeted her, laughing. "Wow, I love it!"
"Thanks!" She was bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. "I got all the goods when I went to Universal with Amy a few months ago. Check it out, I even have her wand!"
"Nice," I said. "You look—"
Suddenly I faltered when a figure appeared next to me. I turned to see someone in a ridiculous dopey looking shark costume standing there, and I snorted incredulously.
"Okay, who the hell are you?"
"Candygram," the shark joked in a nasally voice, and offered me a Jell-O shot.
"Matt?" I smacked my forehead. "Is that you in there? Oh my god."
"You drove me to this," he said. "Take your medicine. In a few hours this will seem normal."
Behind him, Ryan—dressed as a male cheerleader—was cracking up. I rolled my eyes and gave in, swallowing the shot I had been handed. Matt tilted his stupid shark head, causing a laugh to bubble up in my throat; I nearly spewed some of the Jell-O out my nose.
"Jeez, control yourself, you spaz," Matt said. This got Sarah going too, and the blonde leaned against Ryan for support.
"You know the best way to shut a shark up? Punch it in the nose," I shot back when I finally regained my composure.
"Yeah, and what are you supposed to be? Let's see, pinstripe suit, dorky glasses, oh god, even the shoes? Where's the TARDIS, you fucking nerd?"
I stuck my tongue out, waving the cheap sonic screwdriver I'd bought at Hot Topic in his face. "You know what the TARDIS is, which makes you a nerd too, loser."
A select group of people at this party had seen Doctor Who, since I had gone through a phase last year where I wouldn't shut up about it; half of them had watched a bunch of episodes just to see what the fuss was about. Though he denied it, I knew Matt was one of those people. He knew too many little terms from the show not to be a fan.
"Way to rock that suit, Brit," Ryan piped up. "Someone else dressed up as Ten here too! Heh, I think you might've given him a run for his money—too bad he didn't stick around for long."
"Damn," I said. "But y'know, there can only be one!"
"Amen," Matt said. "Two would be a headache. Hey, who's up for a drinking game? Every time Josh does the Batman voice…"
We all groaned; Josh had been Batman every Halloween since The Dark Knight came out. And lo and behold, three seconds after Matt uttered the challenge, we heard a throaty growl coming from behind us.
"Hey."
"I hate you," I said, taking the drink Matt handed to me.
"Cheers, Doctor," he said with a cheeky grin. We all drank, with the exception of a very confused Batman.
The party lasted well into the night, and for a while I lost track of time mingling. The combination of the heat in the house and the dim lighting and the food I was eating eventually caused my stomach to start doing somersaults, so I switched to water halfway through the night and tried to will away the nausea.
Too many people. Guh. Someone was smoking weed out on the porch and it had wafted into the house, making everything that much worse. I took another swig of my bottled water, slipping out on to the front lawn.
Matt had taken off his shark costume due to the heat; he was standing outside smoking a cigarette, his bangs plastered to his sweaty forehead.
"Yo," he said when I walked up to stand beside him.
"Yo yourself," I replied. "… I feel like shit."
"Fuckin' lightweight."
"Oh, bite me."
For a moment we stood there, staring up at the stars. The night air out here was refreshingly cool compared to inside the house, and it made me feel better almost immediately. Even the smoke from Matt's cigarette didn't bother me that much now.
"Full moon on Halloween," Matt commented. "Doesn't get much better than that."
"Is that a shooting star?" My brow furrowed; I had spied a twinkling something directly above us.
"Hey, yeah, looks like it…" he replied, tilting his head up. "It looks pretty close—oh shit, oh fuck, it's actually—!"
It took a moment to for his words to register along with the picture I was seeing—the twinkling quickly became a blaze, and suddenly I realized it was getting closer and coming straight for us.
"Move! EVERYONE, MOVE!" Matt yelled, grabbing my arm.
We both ran as far as we could out of the way and the other people in front of the house let out screams, scattering in all directions. There was a whine that quickly turned into a screech as the metallic flaming thing cut through the air like a knife, hitting the ground and sending earth flying everywhere. The ground rumbled and the two of us fell to our knees.
For a few seconds after the impact the music from the party was still going, but then it suddenly cut out. Bewildered people began piling out of the house, staring with wide eyes at the crater that now occupied a large portion of Sarah's front yard.
"What… the hell…?" Sarah herself had wandered up beside Matt and I; we slowly got to our feet, though I did so a bit shakily.
"Holy shit," Matt breathed. "Did that really just happen?"
"Is it a meteorite? Like what happened in Russia?" Sarah edged closer to the crater, trying to catch a closer glimpse at the smoking thing at the center.
Ryan was walking up, brushing himself off. "There's no way we should be alive after that," he remarked; his voice was calm, but I saw a tremor in his left hand. "I—I mean, not unless it somehow pulled back on its own at the last second. Something that big hitting the ground from that far up… you saw, it was flaming."
"That's stupid, how could it pull back?" One of Sarah's friends piped up. "It's just a rock—"
It was at that moment that a hatch in the rock opened up, releasing a cloud of smoke. The crowd that had gathered let out a murmur of surprise, stepping back.
"Oh man." Ryan was fumbling for his phone to take a video; I grabbed his arm to still him. My heart was pounding; I had no idea what to expect, but somehow I felt like snapping stupid cell phone pictures should be the last thing on our minds right now.
A floating blue light became visible from the darkness inside the craft. Something shifted and drew into the moonlight; the blue light was attached to a stalk, and the stalk was attached to a metallic body, one that—
My mouth fell open. Part of me wanted to call it all a joke, one big elaborate Halloween prank, but I had already seen too much. Nobody could do that as part of a prank. There was no way.
"Is this a joke?" Sarah voiced my initial thoughts, her eyes wide with disbelief.
"LANDING OPERATION SUCCESSFUL," a new voice came, sounding disjointed and robotic—it was coming from the thing that had exited the craft.
Dalek.
I stood frozen. There was no way. I knew it couldn't be a joke, but it had to be, because Daleks weren't real, the only Daleks I knew of were just empty props—
"ALL DALEK SOLDIERS UNDAMAGED. CORRECT COODRINATES CONFIRMED," the thing said. And, to my horror, three more appeared behind it, their bodies rotating as they observed the crowd.
"HUMANS DETECTED. WITNESSES MUST NOT SURVIVE," the leader spoke. "EXTERMINATE THE HUMANS! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
"This isn't real," Ryan said, but he was backing up.
One of the Daleks attacked, and a beam of light shot out at a girl next to me; her face had lit up with recognition the moment the Daleks had shown up, and now she knew to dive out of the way. She fell to the ground and the tree behind us exploded into flames. Somebody screamed. The Daleks were turning and now I knew, it didn't matter if they were what they looked like, they were armed to kill.
We were at a sudden threshold. I could feel it, I could see it in everyone's eyes—any second now we would lose all rationality and the mob mentality would take over. Everyone was going to run in separate directions, tripping over each other. And to these things, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Though in my head I knew this, my legs were telling me to run. There was no alternative. Run. Run. Run!
It took me a moment to realize I had been screaming the word aloud, and about half the group obeyed. My heart pounded in my ears and I felt Matt gripping my arm hard enough to bruise, and even though people were panicking and running for some reason the Daleks had frozen in place, slowly turning to face me.
"IT IS THE DOCTOR," one of them said. My heart stopped.
"THE DOCTOR IS HERE!"
"Go, go, get out of here, hurry, for fuck's sake," Matt hissed in my ear. But the Daleks had stopped. People were escaping and the Daleks had stopped attacking.
I could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. Soon the cavalry would arrive to deal with this—whether that would be an utter disaster or not was none of my concern. It would be enough of a distraction for me to run away. But now… if—if I could just stall for a minute…
Feeling like I was in a dream, I shook off Matt's hand and took a step forward.
"That's right, here I am—hello!"
I tried to follow Ten's speech patterns but didn't bother attempting the accent, wondering if the Daleks would notice either way. They didn't—they actually backed up the moment I abruptly stepped forward.
"THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE," one of the Daleks declared.
"THE DOCTOR COULD NOT KNOW OF OUR LANDING COORDINATES," the lead Dalek said.
These things were fucking death machines and here I was trying to impersonate the Doctor of all people, who always had some cheeky comeback no matter how desperate the situation—what the hell was I supposed to say? My nausea returned in full force, but at the same time I wasn't completely immobilized by fear either. A tiny voice in the back of my head was telling me it was the alcohol—I was scared but not taking this nearly as seriously as I would have otherwise.
"Oh, but that's where you're wrong," I told them, forcing a grin. "Look at you. Daleks, always so close-minded. Is it really that difficult to believe there was a flaw in your plan?"
"HOW COULD THE DOCTOR KNOW? EXPLAIN! EXPLAAAIN!" a Dalek prodded, moving forward a bit. I stood my ground, but next to me Matt flinched.
"I hope you know what you're doing," he whispered.
Matt, Ryan, Sarah, and three or four of Sarah's friends were all that remained; the rest had run, though I could spy a few people hiding in the trees and attempting to see what was going on.
"Welllll." I said the word Tennant-style, raising my eyebrows. "It's all rather simple, really."
Sirens growing closer. My heart pounding out of control. C'mon…
"THE DOCTOR WILL EXPLAIN!" The Dalek repeated, drawing a pace closer.
I was at the end of my rope. I didn't have a plan. I didn't even know what was going on; how could I bullshit my way through this? One step at a time, one step at a time.
My reply came in the form of a remembered line from the show.
I snorted with feigned amusement, though it sounded horribly fake to my own ears. "The Doctor will not. You're the ultimate race, aren't you? Superior enough to exterminate everyone with a different biological makeup? Go on, think for yourselves, Daleks!"
The Daleks paused for a moment in silence. There was a tense couple of seconds as the few of us that remained stood there, too afraid to dare an escape; the aliens turned to each other and then turned back to face me.
"THE DOCTOR IS STALLING," the leader concluded. "INCREASED HEARTBEAT DETECTED. THE DOCTOR IS AFRAIIID."
"We'd better run," Ryan hissed in my ear.
"There's no way we'd make it!" Sarah protested.
The Daleks were right. I was very afraid, and being found out just made it worse. I couldn't control my own fear, and the Doctor always showed courage in the face of danger, especially in the face of his bitter enemies.
Suddenly one of the Daleks jerked. "CALCULATION ERROR! ONLY ONE HEARTBEAT DETECTED! THIS CREATURE IS HUMAN!"
Oh, shit.
"Wrong!" I declared, on the verge of panic. "If I weren't the Doctor, would I have this?"
In a last bid for survival I whipped out the sonic, hoping it would warn them off, pressing the switch to activate it. The device let out a whirring sound, and that was when the Dalek ship exploded.
The aliens scattered, caught off-guard by the sudden explosion; one of them was actually knocked aside, crashing to the ground. For a moment I stood there agape, but my friends were alert enough to grab me and make a run for it.
"Come on, you suicidal idiot!" Matt yelled. "Run!"
"DO NOT ALLOW THE HUMANS TO ESCAPE!"
"Shit!" Ryan cried. "Here they come!"
"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
A blast of something shot between Matt and I, singeing my suit at the shoulder. The forest in front of us exploded into flame, and his grip was broken on my wrist; then attacks were raining down on us and I lost track of everything, breaking out in a complete sprint for my life.
The forest was on fire all around me. Flaming branches fell and I was forced to dodge, and the sound of the Dalek attack echoed from all angles. My friends were nowhere to be found. I felt that I would be hit and killed at any minute, but regardless my legs carried me onwards seemingly with a will of their own.
Somehow, in some unbelievable stroke of luck, I escaped the Dalek attack. What I left behind was a raging forest fire lighting up the night sky, along with a prominent plume of black smoke; the sirens of police cars and fire trucks still rang through the air, along with what sounded like gunfire. I silently prayed for whoever was unfortunate enough to face off against the Daleks.
Now I was trotting on the sidewalk about a mile and a half from Sarah's house with no idea of where I was going. I was a long ways from home, but was home even an option right now? I couldn't just go back and pretend I hadn't been here. But there were armed responders already at the scene, and it wasn't like I could just go to the government or something and say that aliens from Doctor Who were attacking…
Somebody passed me as I jogged; I slowed and whipped around, intending to warn them about the danger in that direction.
"Hey—" Then I recognized the silhouette and stopped short. No way.
The floppy-haired figure in the tweed jacket stopped in an almost comical fashion, jerking to a halt mid-step and holding up his hands like he'd forgotten what to do with them. Then he slowly turned around to face me. My heart skipped a beat.
It was him. The Daleks were one thing, but this was… this was…
"Ahhh!" He made a little noise of delight and amusement, his face lighting up and his eyes sparkling. "Just the person I was looking for!" He was practically bouncing in place with excitement. "Brilliant back there, absolutely brilliant. The way you sort of—" he did a vague gesture with his hands, puffing out his chest to imitate my false bravado, "—and the screwdriver, perfect! Couldn't have done it better myself."
I was nearly speechless, my eyes wide. "Y-you're…"
"Yes. Right," the man seemed to get back on track. "Hello, I'm the Doctor, pleased to meet you. Contrary to what you may have believed I am very real, and so are those pesky Daleks you encountered back there, though they seem to have gone a bit wonky from the crash—a female claiming to be me, and they notice the heartbeat first? The heartbeat!"
"Are you—" I blinked. "You're seriously the Doctor?"
"Oh, yes," he replied with a grin. "Prove it? All right. You forgot something." Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a sonic screwdriver.
But—no. That wasn't Eleven's sonic—that was Ten's. How would… no, no, that wasn't… that was my sonic, the fake plastic one I'd bought at the mall yesterday! How did he get that?
"Nicked it from your suit when you took it off halfway through the party," the Doctor explained smugly.
I remembered taking the suit jacket off when I went to use the restroom at one point—no way, had he been there the whole party and I hadn't noticed him? Ryan had mentioned seeing someone else in a Ten costume, but not an Eleven…
"But then, the sonic I used earlier…" My mouth dropped open as I put the pieces together, and I pulled the screwdriver out of my pocket. It was larger than the one I had bought, and the gem was green… I was holding the real thing.
"Hello," the Doctor said with a knowing smile, giving me a small wave. "I'll be taking that back now. Oh, no worries, I did make some modifications to yours. The noise was wrong, all wrong. Ah—it's much more glowy now, and—well, you'll learn. You might want to keep it away from small animals and watermelons. Makes watermelons explode—or was it the animals? Can't remember, not important."
I stared warily at the modified screwdriver he had handed me, thinking that the distinction was kind of important, but his train of thought had passed and left me in the dust before I could even catch up.
"Now." He reached out and gripped me by the shoulders, meeting my gaze in earnest. "I came here to tell you something very important, and there isn't much time. I have to tell you—what was it again?"
"Doctor!" I finally said, shaking off his hands and trying to get his attention. "I—I don't know what's going on or how this can even be real, but there's Daleks attacking—you have to help us!"
"It can't be me," he said, shaking his head. "Not this me, anyway. Things are about to get very wibbly wobbly and—"
A rushing, wheezing sound. There was a shift in the shadows behind the Doctor, and then a very familiar blue police box appeared behind him. The door opened and a blinding light shined from within.
"Yes, yes, I know!" He said, turning to the TARDIS and stomping his foot with a petulance that was almost childish.
"Not this you? There's another Doctor around here?" I asked slowly as it dawned on me, my eyes widening.
He flinched a little. "Yes. No. Maybe—I shouldn't have said that. Ah!" The Time Lord threw his hands into the air, seeming to have an epiphany. "I remember! Now listen carefully, Brittany, the fate of this Earth hangs in the balance!"
I had opened my mouth to say something more, but his words held a weight that caused me to fall silent. I realized with a sudden terror that he was going to leave, the TARDIS was getting ready to whisk him away and he was going to leave me here and all I would have left were his words.
"Eighty-seven!" The Doctor said, grinning madly like he'd said the cleverest thing in the universe.
"What?" I blurted out, bewildered.
"The answer! Eighty-seven! That's all I can tell you—I have to go!" The TARDIS was attempting to depart, and the Doctor had to yell over the sound of the time rotor.
"W-wait! Doctor!"
"There's no time!" He called, turned halfway towards me with one foot in the doorway. "Find me, defeat the Daleks, save the multiverse!"
It looked like that was going to be it, he was going to just leave—but then at the last second he poked his head through the door, a hard to read emotion in his fathomless dark eyes. Finally he perked up and gave me a smile that seemed almost fond.
"Geronimo," he said, and then turned away.
The TARDIS was already beginning to vanish even as the door was closing. A nonexistent wind blew my hair back as I stood there, watching the impossible become possible, questioning everything I'd once believed.
"Geronimo," I whispered in reply, still awestruck.