The Doctor was sitting below the TARDIS console in his swingy hammock, sonic in one hand and a length of silver cable in the other when he got the call. He had recently turned off the phone (well, he said he'd turned it off. In reality, he'd fallen over and put his elbow through the wiring, and hadn't yet got round to fixing it), and due to the complex nature of TARDIS repairs, it took him a while to realise that the mailbox he'd taken down with him was pulsating orange: a new message!
Excitedly, he ripped off his repair goggles and chucked them over his shoulder, jumped down from the swing, ran over to the cube, and promptly tripped over a new pile of wiring. Picking himself up, he grabbed the box in one hand, turned it around a couple of times, and frowned at the rows of text that appeared on its surfaces. Simple mobile messaging technology; text message; early 21st century Earth (New Scotland Yard, London, 2013 to be exact); apparently from a one 'Sally Donovan'. The message read: 'If this is the Doctor – I'd quite like some help. I'm having some problems with a freelancer that often comes into my work: he's been making nasty comments about me and a few of my co-workers. I have tried reporting him, but he is useful so no-one seems to be willing to do anything about him. If I've reached the wrong person, sorry. Yours sincerely, Sally Donovan. PS, I got your number from a couple of visiting Americans last year if you were wondering. Said you'd helped them with a couple of things, names of Sam and Dean Winchester?'
Curiouser and curiouser, to use a phrase from Alice in Wonderland.
No co-ordinates shown – he shook the box and two rows of numbers (to a human, they would have looked like a collection of normal numerals, Greek letters, and an assortment of odd symbols) appeared. He grabbed his jacket from where it had fallen off a strange hexagonal toolbox, shoved the box into a pocket, and climbed the steps three at a time to the console room.
He set the box down on one of the sides of the console and started pulling the levers. His fingers flew over the typewriter keys and he tapped the foot-levers like a professional footballer on the pitch. Soon, the TARDIS was in flight.
Sally Donovan was walking down a corridor juggling two cups of coffee, a curling sandwich, and several folders of paperwork when she heard a strange noise. Something like an elephant with stomach problems, or perhaps several broken printers. She hastily put her documents down on someone's desk, and rushed over to the door, behind which was a small storage room for stationery.
What was behind the door, was definitely not the usual stacks of pen pots and envelopes. It wasn't paper or highlighters or rulers, or pencils, or even the maths sets that had inexplicably turned up a couple of months ago (he had said that was from a cat-burglar using it to store the sets, but none of them really believed that even when they'd mysteriously disappeared five days later): instead, there was a large blue cuboid with 'Police Public Call Box' written on it. Sally recognised it from the old pictures she'd seen from back when there had been police boxes on the streets of London, but she had no idea what it was doing there – they'd been out of use for decades and she'd certainly never seen a real one before.
Not certain what else to do, she knocked on the door.
She heard footsteps from inside – even though it was surely too small for more than a few paces? – and the door creaked open. A head stuck out; evidently from a fairly tall person. He was giving her the sort of Look that needed a capital letter: a sort of frown-y stare that indicated confusion, excitement, and a sense of 'what's-going-on' all at once. The door opened slightly more, revealing the rest of the man. He seemed to be dressed in a tweed jacket and trousers held up with red braces, with sturdy boots, a white shirt, and a very uncool bow tie. He glanced at her name label (rules said they were meant to wear them in the workplace but no-one ever did – she was only wearing hers due to an office inspection) and suddenly grinned. "Ah, Sally Donovan!" he said, stepping out of the box properly, closing the door, and offering a hand.
She shook it hesitantly. "Who are you, and how did you get here?" she asked warily. Her other hand was reaching in her pocket for her mobile phone. Guns weren't allowed in the office, but her phone was one of the old-fashioned bricks and would make a fairly decent weapon if necessary. He didn't look dangerous, but then again he'd just stepped out of a box that hadn't been there that morning and after all you never knew.
"Hello, I'm the Doctor. I heard you're in need of a little help?"