Prologue

It all started three days after I met the Doctor in person. Larry and I had closed the shop down for the day. He had asked me to dinner. I wasn't sure how I felt about all of this really... It all felt awfully fast. But driven by my curiosity (as I typically am), I said yes.

We never made it to dinner, of course.

It started raining the morning before. It's why we closed the shop down; it started raining Thursday morning and rained on through to the next day. We never went to dinner Friday night, and on it rained. On and on and on. Saturday went by, Sunday, Monday. Not a single break. Not a single moment of sunshine. And I knew this was strange.

My encounter with the Doctor had given me a new look on the world. It wasn't black and white as it has always been. It was black, and white, and grey, and blue, and green, yellow, purple.

My thoughts were, if statues can come to life because they're really aliens, then what about all these other unexplainable things that are happening all around us? I'm not the only one who saw all the curious things that have been happening these past Christmases. And the hospital that disappeared then showed back up suddenly, as if nothing had happened? Now that was ridiculous.

What if aliens could look like us? What if my neighbor, the strange old woman with the 12 cats that I can't stand, who talks like she's from another planet sometimes, who drones on and on about Kittycat this, and Kittycat that... what if she were from another planet? What if my mailman were an alien? For Pete's sake, could my cat be an alien?

Were there other time-travelers, like the Doctor?

Had others met the Doctor?

That woman who was with him, who was she? Was she an alien? Was she from earth? It wouldn't be too soon before I did my own research on the Doctor.

But first things first.

I phoned Larry Monday afternoon. "Don't you think this is weird, Larry?"

"What's weird?"

"The rain, Larry! The endless rain! Have you even noticed?"

"Well of course Sally, but it's only rain."

"You know, Larry, we thought the Weeping Angels were only statues. And you are aware how that turned out."

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Sally. It's rain."

"Rain that lasts five days or longer?"

"It's weird, Sally, but I don't think it's alien rain."

"Did I say it was alien rain? I didn't. I said it was weird."

"You're over-analyzing it. Again."

"You're a little unenthusiastic for my tastes." He's silent. "Listen, Larry, I'm sorry. I don't mean it like that. But you know how I am. I'm... curious. I'm just curious, that's all."

"Well curiosity killed the cat, Sally. I'd rather it not kill you."

The next day it was still raining. It didn't seem like it would ever let up. Three more days flew by. We opened the shop back up Tuesday. We couldn't afford to stay closed any longer. We had two customers all of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, so it's not like it made much difference. And then, finally, Thursday evening, the rain stopped. It didn't fizzle out or stop with any kind of warning. The rain was there, and then it wasn't.

Sitting at the register, I groaned inwardly. Something big was at work here, and my curiosity was running wild. How could it rain for an entire week straight and I was the only one who thought it strange? Time for some sleuthing.

Larry didn't like it when I got curious about things. He says the last time I started investigating something weird and unexplainable, his sister went missing, a cop went missing, and we almost died. But, I tell him, we solved a mystery, we discovered aliens, and we met the Doctor.

Unlike me, he doesn't feel like this is a worthy outcome.

But I do.

I opened my laptop and typed "The Doctor" into the search engine. There were a lot of unimportant hits about inconsequential doctors of medicine, doctors of philosophy. "No," I said. "No, I don't care about these doctors. I want the Doctor." After thirteen pages of the wrong results, I closed my laptop, frustrated.

And that's when my phone rang. "Hello?"

"Sally Sparrow?" a man's voice asked.

"Yes, this is she. Who's speaking?"

"Hello, my name is Cap'n Jack Harkness. I understand you're looking for the Doctor."