A/N: Hey guys! First story, how exciting! Haha. Just letting you know that I am most likely not putting any romance in this whatsoever, but (assuming anyone even reads this fic) if enough people tell me they want the Doctor with June, I'll certainly take it into consideration. It's just that /SPOILER ALERT/ Eleven's married to River, and Nine and Ten are reserved for Rose. So I'm very reluctant to go there. Besides, I'm pretty shaky on the romance field.
Also, this fic is probably going to have spoilers. Like, a lot. Like, for every season. Oops. I'll let you know at the beginning of each chapter if there are spoilers and which season they're for. Trying to be considerate for y'all.
This chapter is brought to you by my lovely Beta Reader, B00k Freak! And the letter K.
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June balanced the stack of dirty plates, utensils, and cups precariously as she hurried into the diner's kitchen. Swerving hastily to avoid a passing waitress, she bustled over to the sink and set the dishes down gently so as not to break them. She ran a hand through her red hair, grabbed a notepad, and dashed to table twelve to take a young couple's order.
Today seemed to be an especially hectic day for someone with this crappy job, customers constantly flooding in for a bite to eat. June was working at top speed with one motivation: her shift was almost over.
As she marched into the hectic kitchen and yelled out the next order (one cheeseburger with extra onions and one mac-and-cheese) June eyed the clock desperately. 'Twenty minutes,' she assured herself. 'Twenty minutes and I go home for the night.'
Her self-assurance was interrupted by Daniel, Waiter and Pain in the Butt Extraordinaire, as he deliberately bumped into her yet again.
"Watch it!" He glared at her as though it were her fault. June clenched her teeth, her grey eyes glinting dangerously. She forced her short-cropped hair behind her ears before stomping off to collect table twelve's dirty dishes. Stacking them violently over one another, she ignored the alarmed stares of the surrounding customers and mentally counted to ten.
'He'd better be glad I took those darn anger management classes,' June grumbled to herself, 'Or I might have broken his nose.'
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A rather loud yawn escaped June as she stretched, exhausted from The Shift From Hell.
'When I get home,' she groaned in her head, 'I just want to make myself a hot chocolate and go to bed with no added hassle from Kim.' This was very unlikely, however. That cat would never let rest until she had been fed.
June drew her coat tighter around her body. It was only September, but the weather was already freezing cold here in Michigan. It had seemed like a good plan when she was eighteen to go to that stupid university. If she had just stayed in Florida, she would still be able to say that she'd never seen real snow before in her life. June had seen far more of it in the past eight years than she cared to see in a lifetime.
"You just HAD to 'crave adventure,' didn't you? Well, here's your adventure!" She cursed her younger self out before once again remembering to breath deeply and count to ten.
Marching up the many steps of the building (the elevator was still closed for repairs, she noticed with annoyance), she fumbled in her bag for the keys. Finding it at last, June unlocked the door to her apartment and stepped inside.
She was greeted by the obnoxious yowling of an unfed cat. "I know, I'm hungry too. Now shut up."
The tabby batted at her feet the entire time that June walked to the pantry, opened it, and retrieved a can of tuna. Kim didn't calm down until the desired food was set in front of her.
As the cat munched on her fish, June plopped down onto a beanbag chair.
"What happened to us, Kim?" She murmured. "I mean, not only has my life turned into one long, boring non-event, but I'm talking to a friggin' cat." Kim looked briefly up from her dinner as if to say, 'Don't look at me, I just live here.' June sighed for the fiftieth time that day.
It was true that things had not always been so drawn-out and dull for June Elizabeth Parker. She had always been eager. This eagerness was for many things, but above all other things she was eager to live.
June had once enjoyed her routine; she would go to school in the morning, get a good grade or two, talk with her friends on the way home, and relax for the rest of the evening, having finished her homework easily. She had adored the utter simplicity there was in living the way she did. It felt as though things would always be so easy.
It wasn't until she graduated college that things got tricky.
Cursed by an inability to find a teaching job with her English Education major and the shortage of money that was suddenly an extreme problem, June flitted between jobs to compensate for her rent.
If she'd known everything would be so difficult as an adult, she would have never grown up so fast.
June looked back at her naïve younger self and scoffed. The way she had once insisted on doing everything herself, the way she gave up 'childish activities,' such as comic books and sci-fi TV shows, made her want to slap the past version upside the head.
If she could, she so would.
'What were those comics even about? I… I can't remember…' June frowned in thought. 'Well, I do remember a little about the shows I watched… Gosh, I was such a Trekkie! And… what was that other one? I remember being slightly obsessed with it…' She racked her brain for memories. 'Ummm… it had to do with a Doctor, I think… what was his real name again? Doctor… Doctor who, though?'
Her eyes snapped open. 'That's it! Doctor Who in his faithful TARDIS!' It occurred to her that she probably had some DVD's somewhere of the show. Maybe in an old, unpacked box in the closet…?
Before she had fully processed what she was doing, June had risen to look for them. Throwing away any questions of why the heck was she even doing this, June found herself rummaging through the closet with gusto, a bizarre smile on her face.
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"Found it!" June had gone through countless crates and finally had it. "The entire Seasons 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 of Doctor Who on DVD!" Excitedly opening the case for Season 2, she took out the disk and put it into the DVD player. June grabbed Kim and cradled the reluctant kitty as the menu flashed on the screen. "Let's see, what to watch…" June closed her eyes and scrolled through the options blinded. She then randomly selected one and peeked through her eyelids. "The Impossible Planet… sounds cool." Hitting the play button, she stroked Kim's head in anticipation. June's grin was wide as could be as the theme song played and brought back countless memories.
/One episode later…/
"Oh… my gosh… wh… what just… I… I have to watch the other half." June selected the next part of the double episode, 'The Satan Pit' in a sort of trance. No way could she go to bed until this cliffhanger was resolved!
/One episode later…/
"Yeah! The Doctor WINS! Hahaha! Take that, SATAN." June pumped a fist as she watched the TARDIS carry the ship out of the gravitational field of the black hole. She got up abruptly and did a strange sort of victory dance that mainly consisted of wiggling her arms and jumping up and down. As she turned, she stopped at Kim's look.
"What? The good guys just won, I HAVE to celebrate."
The cat stretched out as if to say, 'Whatever you say, you mad old bat.'
June harrumphed and stomped into the kitchen to make some tea. She eyed the clock and saw that it was nearly midnight. "Maybe I ought to go to bed, actually… Then again, it's my day off tomorrow anyway. Just one more episode isn't gonna hurt, right?"
June trotted back to the couch and ejected the previous disk. Selecting randomly from the cases, she saw that she'd chosen Season 4. Putting in the disk, she scrolled through more vaguely familiar titles before stopping on 'Midnight.'
"Haha, Kim, we're watching Midnight at midnight! Get it? Ha…haha… let's just watch."
/One episode later…/
June stared at the television screen, her eyes the size of dinner plates. "What… did I just watch…?"
Kim meowed her agreement.
"What exactly just happened there, Kim?" June had difficulty in registering the episode in her brain. She shook her head to clear it. 'How come I keep picking the crazy, terrifying episodes?' She asked herself.
She started to get up and go to bed, but paused as she passed the DVD boxes on the table. They seemed to beckon her…
June sighed and went back to the TV. As she selected yet another episode, she murmured to herself, "Just one more…"
However, one episode would turn to two, and then three, until she had watched a little of season two, most of season four, and a good chunk of season one. The show occupied June's entire day off, but when she went to work the next day, she was in good spirits. Despite the fact that she was extremely deprived of sleep, June hummed the Doctor Who theme merrily around the diner her whole shift's duration.
All she could think that day was, 'I can't wait to go home and watch more! I need to start season three…"
She couldn't be aware, however, that she would soon loathe that same show. She could never realize that in twenty-four hours, she would be in the worst predicament possible for a human being to be in. How could she know of what was about to come?
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A/N: There it is! Please review; your comments/criticism are valued!