A/N: Hey so, a little oneshot featuring you (yes, you!) as the Doctor's next companion.
When you were little, your mother used to tell you many bedtime stories. Most involved knights, princesses, and dragons, perhaps a talking animal or two. Those were the stories most children your age knew well, but there was one they did not know. You thought it strange because he was your favorite character, and not one of your friends had ever heard stories about the Doctor.
The Doctor, your mother had said, was a brilliant man from space who had all sorts of wonderful adventures. As you grew older, you laughed off this man from the stars as a clever story on your mother's part and nothing more. As a product of those stories, however, you were always watching the skies, particularly at night. The stars fascinated you, and as you grew even older the wonder did not stop. Telescopes, charts, and large books about the known universe were your most prized possessions.
Space was the final frontier, and it needed a great explorer.
Astronomy was your greatest passion, but by the end of your high school career you were made to choose. You didn't have good enough grades to study all of that high-tech science stuff, so working for NASA was not a likely option. Your guidance counselor encouraged teaching: you had excellent grades in English and History, not to mention your everlasting patience with small children.
So you've got your whole future ahead of you, with your planned job and your steady significant other. You're already think children, maybe two or three. You'll have a house in a nice rural place, and your students will always be a delight.
Teaching isn't so bad, you try to tell yourself, but you wish you had worked harder in science. Then again, in your third year of college, you might've been spending your winter holiday at some fancy space school rather than with your family. Who better to spend time with after being dumped by the person who promised you the world for three years but then took it back.
It was then, so very close to Christmas, that you heard a strange noise. Being the perpetually paranoid person you are, you freeze while you try to identify it. There is no other sound like it that you've heard.
Forcing yourself to peer over the couch (you no longer have a room at home, so you sleep on the couch) and look out of the window to see what has interrupted your insomnia-induced musings. Beyond the porch you see...nothing. There is nothing outside that looks out of the ordinary to you. The night is calm and you admire how the moon shines on the thick layer of snow for a moment.
Normally, this is where you lay back down and force yourself to think calming thoughts until you eventually fall asleep. You have a mantra now that you repeat whenever you wish to drive the bad things from your mind: the Doctor will save me, the Doctor will save me.
Something about this night is very abnormal though. You have nothing to lose, so you pull on your snow boots by the door, pull a coat on over your pajamas, and glance at the clock in the kitchen (it reads 2:30). You ease the front door shut behind you and stand in the cold stillness of the night.
Your breath looks like smoke, I'm a dragon, you think unconsciously. You've always told yourself that. There was once upon a time where you believed you were special, that you would do great things. Hope has failed you since those days.
Clutching your coat closer, you leave the porch in search for your late-night mystery. The snow crunches softly under your feet, and now that you are wandering around your yard, in the countryside, at night do you think it might've been wise to bring a weapon of sorts.
Too late now, you scold yourself. You're in the middle of an adventure, can't go back. Not even for your handkerchief, which you have also forgotten. Now what will you do when your nose starts to run?
Regardless, you make your way around to your field of a backyard, and there it is. By the stars above, there it is. You can scarcely believe your eyes, and it's still on the other side of the field, you blink hard and rub your eyes just to be sure. No, it's still there.
You advance uncertainly, your heart in your throat as you walk across the remaining distance. As you go, your stride is more confident, more firm yet frenzied. You run the last three feet, careless of the ice that may await you, but you do not slip as you stop before it.
A blue police box standing proud, maybe arrogant, in your back yard. Your heart is hammering with excitement and disbelief, and you do not stop to think that it may be a dream. With a tentative hand, you reach out to touch it with gentle fingers. In all your imaginings, you've never imagined the TARDIS quite like this: so solid and beautiful.
You walk around the perimeter, carefully measuring out the steps and filing them away for safe keeping. Once again at the door of that wonderfully impossible craft, you stare a the handle.
Should you knock? Invite yourself in? Call out? Maybe he already knows you're standing outside. At that thought you narrow your eyes and look up. You don't know exactly where the device is, but you do know it's somewhere near the top. Still nothing happens, and you're starting to get chilly.
Knock, knock, knock.
Just as you had made up your mind to knock, someone is knocking on the other side of the door. At you. Startled, you withdraw your hand.
"Um, hello?" You considered knocking back, but this seemed more socially acceptable to you. But really, what is socially acceptable between a Time Lord and a human?
The door swing open and light from the TARDIS washes over you. You are overwhelmed for a moment, the blinding light and your excitement to see the Doctor rendering you useless for half a moment. He comes into focus as your eyes adjust to the light, and he looks just like a human being. You are not surprised, but always expected something a little more...alien.
"Doctor," you gasp, still hardly able to believe your eyes. Now you consider the possibility of dreaming as he grins his cheeky grin at you.
"Hello there!" He exclaims, stepping aside. "You must be cold, why don't you come in?"
"My mother's told me not to talk to strange men, especially if they're offering candy," you grumble as you shuffle your now frozen feet into the welcome shelter of the ship. But the Doctor isn't a stranger, though he may be strange, and you see no candy.
You turn around to examine him more thoroughly, as though he will disappear in a heart beat. Which reminds you...
You place your hand quickly on the right side of his chest, then the left. He jerks in surprise, but does not otherwise move until you've confirmed it.
"She was right, you do have two hearts," you mutter to yourself, and puzzle in ernest why a Time Lord might need two hearts. Before you can get very far into your thoughts, he clears his throat. You suddenly remember yourself, and straighten in alarm.
"I-I'm so sorry Doctor, that was - "
"Don't you have anything to say? About the inside?" He looks at you expectantly over his glasses, and you recall what people usually say about the TARDIS.
"Oh, yes, bigger on the inside," you say, trying to appease him. He looks like he's been cheated of a candy bar, so you explain. "If I knew who you were, didn't you think I'd know the TARDIS is bigger on the inside? I measured the outside before I - er, you - knocked. Why did you knock?"
"Well someone had to," he replies, quirking his brow in amusement. You shrug your shoulders in agreement, and content yourself with wandering around the control panel.
"Why did you come?" The question that's been on the tip of your tongue for minutes blurts from your mouth, and you can't help but blush a little. How foolish you feel, a human in the presence of the Doctor. He's been expecting that question from the start, it would seem, because he's ready with an answer.
"You called me here, in a way." You look at him, confused, but he continues. "Your psychic waves are so strong, so desperate, that they reached me through time and space when I got close enough to you."
This seems very absurd to you. How could your brain waves do that? As if for more of an illustration, the Doctor whips out his psychic paper. It reads, as if written by your hand; the Doctor will save me, the Doctor will save me. Your personal prayer.
Shame and embarrassment force you to lower your eyes, and your face is beginning to feel hot with the guilt. You mumbled an apology and try to make a break for it, but he grabs your arm and forces you to stay.
"Hey, hey now," he soothes, but you still cannot meet his eyes. This man worthy of legends has stopped his heroic battles to come to the aid of a depressed twenty year old who means nothing to the world.
That thought strikes a chord in your chest, and you can't help the tiny tears. All of your self-loathing takes this opportunity to rise when you are weak, and strike at you. Worthless, good for nothing, waste of space.
The Doctor pulls you into a hug, and you cannot help but think how kind he is while you sob into his blue jacket. He doesn't even know you. You command yourself to rein in your emotions before you have a mental breakdown on the TARDIS, in front of your childhood hero.
"I'm sorry, really, I just - I'm a mess right now," you apologize feebly, pushing yourself away from him. You reach into your pocket but - damn! - you should've gone back for that handkerchief. Instead you scrub the sleeve of your coat across your face and sniff. You just wished you didn't look like a wretched mess when you cried.
"Yeah, what year is this?"
"2012."
"Oh, ouch," he winces sympathetically. "2012 was a rough year for you."
"Tell me about it," you sniff.
"It'll get better, you know. A lot of people say that, but they're right. It'll always get better." He offers you a handkerchief which you gladly accept. There is an easy silence for a moment while you think.
"Doctor, if you knew this was a bad year for me, does that mean I'll see you in the future?"
"Oh, well, can't tell you that," he says, like he's hiding some huge secret that he wants to share. But he doesn't, contenting himself with a smile that hides so much. "All I've got to say is you're going to be brilliant one day. Not as brilliant as me," he reminds you. "But pretty brilliant."
You cannot help but smile at this mad man, this childhood hero of yours. A childish wish pops into your mind, and you wonder if the Doctor will humor you.
"You go all around time and space," you point out. "But my mother said you never go alone. Where is your companion, Doctor?" You try to put on your most innocent of faces, but of course he can see right through it. He plays along though, bless that man.
"I was hoping to pick someone up between ancient Mesopotamia and about 2130. You wouldn't happen to be interested in seeing all of time and space, would you?"
"I thought you'd never ask," you breathe.
It is only when the TARDIS has entered the time vortex do you realize you're wearing footie pajamas.