The Call of the Wild Rewrite
As Buck slid along with the obscureness of a gliding shadow, his nose was jerked suddenly to the side as though a positive force had gripped and pulled it. Buck sniffed his way carefully back into the camp. He was sure that something was wrong. There were footprints on the ground that was not from John, Hans, or Pete. As Buck apprehensively came out of the woods into camp he spotted the intruder to his life. The man was tending to the lacerated edges of the wounds Hans and Pete had. Buck heard him speak "Well, you two really should not have survived that. I got here at a really terrible time." As the stranger finished his sentence he reached up and ruffled his unkempt hair. Buck slunk in still hiding as he had not been shown any reason to trust this man as of yet. The man suddenly turned around and looked straight at Buck as if anticipating there was a creature full of wrath behind him. "You must be Buck then." The man looked into Buck's eyes with a rashness that showed Buck that this is not a man to toil with. The man mumbled under his breath that Buck only heard as "I really should not be here," the man then spoke out, "John, could you please come out and show Buck that I am not going to hurt any of you."
John came out from the spruce-bough lodge and approached a covert and sullen Buck. "Buck, this man saved our lives. He's called the Doctor, refuses to tell us his name. You have to trust him." Buck looked up at the man called the Doctor and growled. "I wish you would trust him without me having to say this, but he saved us all from the Yeehats. They came around we were all full of ecstasy when suddenly this man appeared in his police call box. You should be grateful Buck. If it wasn't for him we would all be dead." At those last words Buck suddenly intimated that he approved of the Doctor. The new man was then welcomed in an unwonted way by Buck and Buck was could not stay away from this man for long.
This man began to go with Buck on his walks in to woods. Buck did not particularly mind, but it did make hunting harder, particularly because the Doctor would say something or create a din right at the apex of the hunt. Buck was beginning to believe that this stranger did not like when Buck was violent or killed an animal on his hunts. Buck was finding it exceedingly difficult to continue his life as it had been before the Doctor had shown up out of nowhere in his police box. Buck had not succeeded in killing even a squirrel in weeks. Buck found that he would often be thinking about the moose he had hunted down and wore out until he could finally bring it down.
After each and every trip into the woods, whether the Doctor went with Buck or Buck had snuck away on his own, the Doctor would take Buck's head into his hands look deep into the eyes of a creature in torment with no escape and say "You have to make your choice. I shouldn't have come when I did. I had meant to come a little bit later. I am so sorry, but you have to choose one or the other. You cannot live with the best of both worlds in this situation. I am sorry but I changed something that never should have been changed. It is all up to you now." The Doctor would then kiss Buck on top of the head and walk away into whatever conversation John was having with Hans and Pete.
As the days the Doctor was with the little group turned to weeks, Buck found himself drawn to the mystery of the police box that still none, save for the Doctor, had been inside of since he parked. Occasionally the Doctor would go in and come back out with extra provisions or extra blankets to keep the men warm during the nights. The Doctor would often find Buck sniffing around the edges of the police box and every once in a while Buck would look up and whimper at the Doctor, asking permission to be allowed to see what is inside. At those instances the Doctor would kneel down, takes Buck's head in his hands, lean down right next to Buck's ear and say "It is not for you to see. That is not one of your choices. Please don't ask me to let you in again." But still, without fail, Buck would be found perambulating around the edges of the mysterious blue box that, according to the Doctor, was very malignant to Buck.
This act continued on for weeks until the weeks turned to months. The Doctor was beginning to worry about Buck as he was becoming gaunt because of his obsession with knowing what was inside the box. Buck had started to eat less and less and was becoming very parched. The Doctor could feel that he was starting to bend and was going to give in if this went on any longer.
Then one particularly chilly night when Buck refused to come over to the fire and eat, the Doctor slowly approached him by the police box. The Doctor was beginning to conciliate with the idea of taking Buck into the TARDIS, his name for the box which he had mentioned to no one. When the Doctor finally reached the starving and morose Buck, Buck would not even look at him. The Doctor held out his hand with some food and said very very quietly "I can't take you inside if you are starving, can I?" There was a twinkle in the Doctor's eye that Buck saw immediately and Buck then proceeded to scarf down every crumb in the Doctor's hand. "Now then… I better get some permission now shouldn't I…? Well, if I remember correctly you are closest to… John, yes?" The Doctor then looked around back to the fire and said loudly "John, oh buddy oh pal. Would you mind if I show Buck here something interesting I saw the other day on a walk in the woods?"
"Yes I don't see why you couldn't, why would you ask to show him something in the woods? You won't be long will you?" John's voice sounded very confused at this development.
"Well, you see, John oh buddy oh pal, I don't know how long it will take for me to find the place again and I just don't want you to go looking in the woods for either of us."
"Alright, well you go ahead then. As long as you bring Buck back at some point!" Then John had a little laugh and went back to his conversation with Hans and Pete, not giving the matter another moment of thought.
The Doctor leaned down next to a very confused looking Buck who wants to go into the box and not to the woods. He says quickly and quietly "Buck if go into that box with me I will never be able to get you back here. You will never to John again. John will never see you again. If you come with me John will think of this time as a calamity. Do you understand?" The Doctor looked into Buck's eyes to see if he understood. "What am I thinking? You are a dog! There is no way you will ever understand! You are just an animal!" As the Doctor said those last words, Buck looked up into the Doctor's eyes and in that moment the Doctor knew that Buck understood the gravity of the situation. "If I take you in there," the Doctor mumbled, "You will never see John again. Are you really okay with that?"
In response Buck scratched as the door of the TARDIS and looked up at the Doctor. "Alright Buck. Let's go see the universe." With those words the Doctor unlocked the door and began to explain himself to Buck, even though he knew Buck would not have a reaction like any other companions he had ever had. "Alright, where to start, better start off with the basics. I am a 900 year old Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey. Mind, it probably doesn't even exist in this dimension, since you exist here and in my dimension you are just a story. Anyway, that is not important. I have two hearts; I don't suppose you even know what a heart is though… Oh well. I can regenerate instead of dying and then my face will change and I get a completely new personality. This is my 10th face, well that is not counting the face I like to pretend does not exist." As the Doctor finished speaking Buck had entered the TARDIS already and was running around the center console. "Well, this is my TARDIS; it stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. My granddaughter, Susan, thought of TARDIS." The Doctor sighed. "I really miss her sometimes. Anyway, the TARDIS can take me anywhere in all of time and space. She is not supposed to take me to other dimensions, since it is against the rules! But she likes to sometimes anyway. Now then, where should I take you Buck?"
Buck looked up at this man in an entirely new light. His excitement to be with this man was almost intolerable. Even better in Buck's eyes, however, was that he no longer had to make the impossible decision between staying with John and going to live in the wild with his wild brother. Buck looked up into the eyes of the Doctor and knew that he was going to enjoy his time traveling. If only Judge Miller could see him now.
Buck never had a relationship where he truly loved a human after John Thornton. He did get along fairly well with the Doctor however. The Doctor often thought that this was because the Doctor was not human and therefore could see how Buck might feel better than any man could.
The Doctor and his dog. All of the Doctor's enemies soon came to know and fear his dog, and rightly so. Buck could tear a Dalek to pieces and could destroy a Cyberman in the blink of an eye, which when the Weeping Angels appeared he would not do. Buck and the Doctor together travelling through time and space.
After years and years of travelling together, the Doctor began to notice the Buck was getting older and was having some trouble keeping up with the Doctor. The Doctor's futile attempts to get Buck to stay in the TARDIS simply filled the old dog with wrath. Buck would often assail the Doctor, but to no avail. He was still kept in the TARDIS for the simple reason that the Doctor could not bear the idea of losing such an amazing companion.
This went on for years until Buck forgot what the world looked like outside of the TARDIS. Eventually he could not walk anymore. But still every time the Doctor was going to leave the TARDIS, without fail, Buck would try to drag himself to the door to go with. Buck would look up into the Doctor's eyes and whimper just like he did when he was trying to get into the TARDIS for the first time. The Doctor would always look down into his eyes bend over and say "I am so sorry I took you away from the life you were supposed to live. I am so sorry. There is nothing I can do now though. I should have left you there with John. Let you choose between him and the wild. I should have but I didn't and every time I look at you I feel the immense guilt that I know I deserve. I am so so so sorry Buck. Please forgive me, but I can't take you out. There would be no way I could run back and then either both or one of us would surely die. I am so sorry." Then with those parting words every time the Doctor would exit the TARDIS and Buck would sit in one place and wait for his return. When the Doctor would return, Buck would listen intently to every word of the Doctor's adventure and all the details of the planets and civilizations he saved, trying to imagine what it would be like if he had been there.
After years of it going on like this, the Doctor left the TARDIS one day to go and save the Earth once again from an invasion from an alien. When he returned to the TARDIS he walked around the console and began to recount the tale to Buck, expecting him to listen just like he normally did. The Doctor was eloquently telling his story when he realized that he could not hear Buck anymore. He could not hear his breathing or any sounds of him repositioning to try and be more comfortable. The Doctor turned around to where he knew Buck lay, almost not wanting to out of fear of what he would see. When he finally turned around, he saw Buck's lifeless body. The Doctor immediately broke down in tears.
"No. No-o. N-no. Th-this ca-an't be-e hap-ppen-ning. Not-t no-ow. I a-am n-not re-eady for th-this yet!" He stammered in between sobs. "H-how ca-an th-this be happen-ning n-now?"
The Doctor fell to his knees beside Buck's body. He did not even know how he had managed to walk his way across the TARDIS. All he knew was that his best friend, the only friend he had had for a long time, was dead. He thought the pain might just kill him.
When he reached out to hold Bucks body he saw that his hands were glowing. He slowly backed up. "N-no! I c-can't ch-change now!" The Doctor backed up to the other side of the TARDIS. "No! Wh-what kind-d of a ma-an will I bec-come if I ch-change in this utt-ter sadness-s!"
As he reached the other wall he slid his back down the wall and sat down. The Doctor knew that there was no stopping his regeneration now. The only way now is to carry on and allow the regeneration to happen. The Doctor let go of all his emotions and stopped trying to stop the regeneration. He felt his head get jerked back and he felt his arms be thrown out. The golden light was flowing out of him allowing everything to be started anew. He futilely tried to throw some of the regeneration energy over to Buck so that the new him would still have a friend in the TARDIS with him.
The Doctor could feel that the process was now finished, the first thing he did was check to see if Buck had managed to get any of the regeneration energy. His attempt had failed.
His next step was to see that he still had all his limbs and to try and discover what kind of a person he would be now. "Alright. Legs! I've still got legs. Good. Arms, hands, oh fingers, lots and lots of fingers. Ears, yes, eyes, two, nose… I have had much worse. Chin… Blimey! Hair! Am I a girl? No! No, I'm not a girl… Okay… and still not a ginger! There's something I am forgetting now… something really important… I'm… I'm… I'm… crashing! How did that happen? Oh well! Haha! Woohoo! And… Geronimo!