He had finally done it. He'd reached the Schiapparelli Crater. After these long sols cooped up in a tiny, smelly rover, he'd done it. Mark stepped out of the rover, wearing his orange and white EVA suit. He had just descended the slope of the crater an hour or so before.

The red-pink sky was starting to get much more vibrant as the sun slowly rose. Watney had stepped out to gather the solar panels off the rover and lie them in the sun. One more recharge and he was practically in walking distance from the Aries IV MAV.

From this, Mark was in a good mood. He was whistling in his helmet, despite the fact that nobody could hear it. This was probably due to the fact that he was the only living being on Mars at the time. Or so he thought.

While Mark was whistling his catchy tune, he was plugging the solar panels into the rover so that the energy from the sun would get directly siphoned from the panels to the rover. He'd done this a million times before (or at least it felt like that many). He took one off the back of the rover, grabbed a wire and with difficulty due to the thickness of his gloves, attached it to the panel and plugged it in to the rover. Welp, about twenty more to go.

Around thirty minutes later, he had all his panels set up. There was nothing else to do, so he crouched down on the freezing Martian dirt, and leant his back against the rover's large wheel. The sun was now above the horizon, and it shone delicately against his helmet, and most prominently, his blonde beard.

Just about when he was going to close his eyes, an out-of-the-ordinary object caught his attention from the corner of his eye. He turned around as best as he could in his uncomfortable EVA suit, and there it was. A blue box. At least, he couldn't see any details because it was terribly far away, on one of the ledges of the Schiapparelli Crater, and the Martian dust getting picked up by the light wind hazed his vision. His eyebrows furrowed and his eyes squinted, trying to get a better view at the box. Thinking, he closed his eyes for a good three seconds to see whether he was hallucinating or not, and opened them again.

The box was still there.

Quickly, Mark jumped up and off the rover's tyre and tried to get a better look. He then realized that his helmet's HUD could zoom in on objects to an extent. Mentally kicking himself, he pressed a few buttons on his wrist control panel and the face-plate zoomed in on the sight.

Mark looked at it in disbelief. It was a telephone box. He knew this, because he could see the writing on the top of it, glowing a blue glow. His expression was priceless, to say the least. Although this quickly changed to frustration.

"Great, I knew this was gonna happen. I've gone nuts, no thanks to this stupid planet!" Mark gave the dirt on the ground next to him a good hard kick. He looked down from the Martian ground, and looked up again. Nothing changed, apart from a fucking figure standing next to the box.

"What, the, actual, fuck." Mark practically whispered in his helmet. He looked at the zoomed in picture again, and it showed the figure more detailed. He was waring what seemed to be a blue striped suit and a red tie. He had brown hair and some pretty mean side-burns, if he did say so himself. Although, the thing that really bothered Mark was why he wasn't dying from the lack of air. Maybe he was an alien… Mark thought.

Then he had an idea. Quickly, without taking his eyes off of the 'alien', Mark clambered back into the rover. Since he had to find his camera with his eyes, looked around in the small cabin for a brief moment, and re-emerged back outside to the Martian atmosphere with a heavily-enforced camera.

Even before looking back to where the blue box had originally been, he heard a faint groaning, wheezing noise. Like someone was cutting wood in a strange manner, or a jackhammer. At least, that's what he could make out of the sound before it dispersed into nothingness. It was very subtle, due to the thin Martian atmosphere prohibiting sound to travel effectively.

His head whipped up to the edge of the crater. It was gone.

That was the sol in which Mark Watney stared at the edge of a crater like an idiot for around two hours straight.

. . .

Three Months since Mark returned to Earth, NASA HQ.

"And then… it was gone! Mr Sanders, I kno-"

"Please, call me Teddy."

"Yeah, Teddy, right. I know it sounds hard to believe, but I don't know if it was real or not! I mean, I could have gone fuckin' crazy on that planet and how would I have known?"

Mark was in Teddy Sanders' office, trying to explain his whole ordeal on Mars to him. As you would expect, he was having difficulty.

"Look, Mark, I can't exactly 'believe' you if you're not going to show up here with any evidence!"

"I tried to get evidence, but then the box just disappeared!"

"What, like magic?"

"Like hell, I don't know, but that would be cool…"

"I'm sorry, I can't believe you if you don't show evidence. Simple as that. Now, it's pretty tired and Purnell's trynna get back on my ass about firing him, so if you please?"

Mark sighed in defeat. It was not like he was expecting Teddy to believe him. He heaved himself off the sofa and walked to the door.

"Are you sure…?"

Teddy sighed in exasperation. "Yes, I'm positively, completely sure it was just a figment of your imagination."

With that, Mark opened the door and walked out of the room, not bothering to close it. Every single person he tried to tell about his situation, none of them would take any of it. Not even Chris, who was usually gullible enough to believe that volcanoes were actually Earth-pimples.

Ah, well. It was worth a try. And besides, Mars was behind him now. He could leave the damn Martian to whatever it was doing, why did he give a shit? And why was he wearing Earth clothing? Or was that just what Martians wore? Or maybe, Martians secretly invade our planet and buy our clothes because Martian clothes suck and they want to look cool?...

While Mark was pondering on this and walking down the hallway, he spotted the janitor, or at least that's what he thought he was. But once he got a good look at him, he froze in his spot.

It was the same man. The same man he saw on Mars all that time ago, with the blue pin-striped suit and everything. When he got a good look at him, he noticed the man had accentuated cheek bones and a very faint stubble.

The man, looking away from his mop on the ground, raised his eyebrows at Watney.

"Oh, hello! Don't mind me, just getting some cleaning up done, this place consumes a surprising amount of coffee…" He talked in a mildly thick British accent.

"It's you… it was you, on Mars…"

The man stayed silent. His smile from his face faded quickly, and he looked back onto the ground. Mark looked at him in confusion, desperation and slight anger.

"… Yeah, I guess that was me…"

"Okay, first off, how? And second off, why?"

"Well, really, I'm not supposed to tell you all that stuff," The man sniffed, leaning on the wooden handle of his mop. "But seeing you're so traumatized about it, I'll let you in."

Mark waited for an answer from the skinny man. The man breathed in, and paused.

"I'm a traveller. Except, well, I travel the universe. I'm not from your planet, that's why I can breathe in and withstand lethal atmospheres. I like to watch the universe go by, I suppose. The human race is certainly an interesting one…"

Mark took a minute to process the information he was just given. He pursed his lips into a thin line, his eyebrows furrowed once again and looking considerably content. Finally, he looked back up at the man.

"Right. What's with the blue box-thing?"

"That? That's my ship. I swear, if I go into detail I'd probably just make the situation worse."

"Oh, please, spare me!"

The man laughed a little, looking down again. He exhaled loudly, and looked back up.

"Well, better be off then. And trust me, if you tell anyone they won't believe you. I just told you all of that to reassure you're not insane. I hope you understand."

The man just walked off, into the nearby janitor's closet. Mark swiftly ran towards him in hopes of following him to wherever he was going. The man opened the closet door and walked inside. Once Mark was at the door-frame of the closet, he saw the same blue box he saw on Mars.

"So that's you're ship? Must be pretty cramped."

"It's bigger on the inside. Please, don't make me explain it too you, you won't be able to handle the science."

Mark would believe anything this guy could throw at him at this point. The man was rummaging through his jacket pocket looking for his keys, and his hand dived into the pocket of his suit and held it in his slender fingers. Just when he was about to insert the key into the key-hole, Mark asked one final question.

"Wait!... Who are you?"

The man stopped, and looked back at Mark for the last time.

"My name is the Doctor."

The Doctor then turned around to the door, used the key to open the door to the blue box, and closed it behind him. The box then started to emit a loud wheezing and groaning sound, the same sound Watney heard faintly in the crater. It was like the box was fading in and out of reality, appearing and disappearing.

And then it was gone.