So this is my third major attempt at a Doctor Who fic, and I just felt like writing this out of the blue. It uses a similar Doctor to the one I used in my failed "Darkness Within", and the same companion from that fic, too. Unlike that one, however, I MIGHT actually finish this one. We'll see.
When Jessica Carpenter first saw the strange man, she was a little girl playing on the swing and he was wobbling on the balance beam. When she asked him why he was in a playground, he replied simply, "Balancing." Jessica pressed him further, asking why he was balancing. The man grinned and told her that everything existed in a balance, just like he was right then. Then he leapt agilely off the beam and walked off.
She'd been scolded by her mother for talking to a stranger that night. Even if the stranger was a nice man who didn't own a white van.
After that, she made dolls out of cardboard of the man she'd dubbed Mister Balance, and played with them often. Why she did, she never knew. Still, it was harmless enough.
Eventually, she grew up, shortening her name to Jess and spending far too much time out with friends when she could easily be studying for her Chemistry degree.
But even then she never parted from Mister Balance. The dolls now took pride of place on a shelf in her apartment. Surprisingly, the cardboard survived the years – all twelve of them – and looked as good as new.
Of course, she never believed she'd see him again. She started to tell herself she'd made him up because she didn't like to play with the other kids and was lonely.
She couldn't have been more wrong.
She was walking down a dimly lit alley in a nice part of town when she heard the noise. It was strange, like a strangled growl. She turned, her dark hair flipping slightly. "Hello?" she called into the night.
No response.
"Mike, I swear, if you're trying to scare me again, I'll rip your flipping ears off!" She stopped. She'd never said the word 'flipping' in her life. Something harsher, yes, but never 'flipping'.
Eventually she shrugged and continued to walk, thinking it was just one of her friend's pranks again, or just a figment of her imagination.
There it was again. A snarl, like a beast on the hunt. It was getting closer.
A rush of footsteps came behind her. Running footsteps. A tall man in a black jacket, plain white T-shirt and dark blue jeans rushed past her. His hair was short and blonde, his face rounded. "Run!" he bellowed as he ran past her.
Flabbergasted, she didn't move. The man stopped when he realised this and groaned. "Why can humans never follow basic instructions? Come on!" He grabbed her hand. "Run!"
"F-from what?" Jess managed to get out. This…this was…
The man pointed to the end of the alley. "Them."
His finger was indicating three evil-looking beasts; brown skin, demonic yellow eyes, batlike wings protruding from their backs…not to mention the razor-sharp teeth that resided in their gaping maws.
"Oh my God," she muttered.
"Agreed," the man said firmly. "Run?"
"Run."
His hand still wrapped around hers, he pulled her along, running from the beasts, whatever they were. He made so many twists and turns through the alleyways, as if trying to lose the monsters, but he kept muttering things like "No no no, where did I park?" and "Where the hell has she got to now?"
Eventually they made it to a very wide alley, which housed a rectangular blue box with "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX" plastered on the top.
"Ah-ha! Gotcha!" the man exulted, pulling her along towards the box.
"What are you doing?" Jess demanded of the man, her voice in a shout. "We can't hide in there!"
"Who said anything about hiding?" He clicked his fingers, and the blue doors snapped open. Without another word, he ran into the box, dragging Jess with him, closing the doors behind him. He leaned against the door, panting from exertion.
Now this was just going too far. Inside the box was a room – a whole room! It was futuristic-looking, with walkways and circular window-like things all over the walls. What dominated the room was a massive console in the centre.
"What the flipping hell?" she shouted. "What the flip were those things? What the flip is this thing? And why the flipping flip am I saying flip so much?"
The man seemed to be resisting the urge to laugh. "I can't answer that first one, but the others, in order. One: Those were Krillitanes. Long story short, they're conquerors that take in the characteristics of conquered peoples, hence the wings. Two: This is the TARDIS. Stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. Another long story short, it's a spaceship that also travels in time. And yes, it's bigger on the inside. Three: You're saying that word so much because of the TARDIS's in-built swear filter. It changes any expletives you try to say into less harmful versions of themselves. There. All good?" He grinned now.
Once she'd calmed down, shock ran through her as she looked at him again. "You…you're…Mister Balance."
He arched an eyebrow. "I've been called a lot of things in my last thousand years, but never that."
Jess blinked. "Sorry, what? Did you just say 'thousand years'?"
"I believe I did."
She ran her hands through her hair. "That's it. I've lost it."
"Lost what?"
"My flipping mind! Dah! That's really flipping annoying, you know that?"
"Oh, I dunno. I kinda like it."
"Okay, Jess, calm down. Any second now you'll wake up." She closed her eyes and stood still. "And…now." Her eyes opened in a flash.
Mister Balance smiled and waved. "Hiya!"
Angrily, she closed them again. "Now!" They snapped open.
He clicked his tongue. "Still here, Sweetcheeks," he muttered in a bad American accent.
She pinched her arm aggressively several times. "Why won't I wake up?" she roared.
"Because you're not dreaming. Believe me, I'd know if you were, because some creepy semi-bald man in a red bow tie would be standing next to you."
"What?"
"Nothing. So…you wanna head home, then?"
"Yes! Back to when things were normal!"
"You'll be hard-pressed to find that." He moved from the door to the console in the centre, pushing a couple of buttons and pulling a lever. The whole room shuddered as if at his command, and the cylinder at the centre started moving up and down. After a few seconds, it stopped. "Here we are. Apartment block, London, England, December 2013. Same night, even. Wow, I'm good."
Cautiously, she moved to the door and opened it. "What the… That's my apartment block! How…"
"Considering you were just doubting your sanity, you don't want to know." He followed her outside and gave her a serious look. "Just a word of advice. Stay home. Don't go anywhere. Not even to university. Understand?"
Jess's eyes widened. "How did you…"
"I have my ways," he replied evasively. "Stay home. The Krillitanes will target you now that they've seen you with me, and they can imitate humans almost perfectly. I'd avoid social gatherings of any kind." With that, he walked back to the box, closing the door behind him.
Even after everything else she'd seen that night, she didn't expect the rush of wind and the box slowly disappearing before her very eyes!
"This has gotta be a bad dream, surely," Jess murmured to herself as she walked up the stairs to her apartment.
No such luck.
The next day, completely ignoring Mister Balance's recommendation – again, she'd convinced herself she'd been dreaming – she went to university, ready for another boring lecture from Professor Baker.
When the door opened, in came…Mister Balance.
"Hello, everyone!" he beamed. "Professor Baker is away today. Won the lottery, the lucky man, so I'm filling in. Call me Doctor Smith."
Jess's head hit the desk with a thud. There was a titter of laughter.
"Is something wrong, miss…" He looked at a clipboard he'd brought with him. "Miss Carpenter?"
"No," she murmured just loud enough for him to hear.
"Well then, I'm sure you'll have no trouble explaining to me the formula for the compound phenolphthalein?" He grinned. "Side-note: I love saying that."
She stared at him, her brown eyes bulging.
"Hmm. Guess not. See me after the lecture, Miss Carpenter." He looked around. "Anyone else? Phenolphthalein?"
A mousy girl with curly brown hair raised her hand high in the air. "Phenolphthalein has a formula of C-20 H-14 O-4."
"Well done, Miss…" He looked at the clipboard.
"Granger, sir. Harmony Granger."
'Doctor Smith' grinned ear to ear. "I'm gonna have a field day with that."
Once the lecture ended – with Harmony Granger answering every bloody question – Jess trudged over to the lecturer's desk. "What?" she asked unceremoniously.
"I told you to stay home," he murmured.
"And I thought you were made up."
"So we've both got our little problems, then. Especially this. Three of the staff here? Krillitanes. I wish they'd pick a different hiding spot. School staff is so three faces ago."
"Who the hell are you?"
"The Doctor," he said simply.
"No, I mean your real name."
"The Doctor," he repeated.
"Are you seriously telling me your name is the Doctor?"
"Yup." The 'p' ended with a popping noise.
"So…say I believe you. Say that some of my teachers are Krillitanes."
"Hey, you pronounced it right!" He beamed.
"Stop that."
He put on a theatrical frown.
"And that. How are you meant to deal with them? And why?"
"I'll try and reason with them, but that has a 1000 to 1 chance of working. As for why?" He fixed his jacket. "Because I'm the Doctor."
"Because you're the Doctor?" she repeated.
"Is there an echo in here?"
The door to the lecture theatre opened violently, and there stood three of the lecturers. Professor Stein from Biology, Doctor Carrel from History and Mr Prinz from Education. They were snarling.
Mister Balance – the Doctor, whatever he was bloody well called – stepped forward. "Tell you what, you're not as imaginative as you Krillitanes used to be. This is the second time I've come across you lurking in an education environment. Bad form repeating old mistakes."
"Those ones were fools, preying on the weak young minds," Prinz replied, his voice guttural. "The fully-developed human is a much better prize."
"So, what, you're trying to crack the Universe's code again?"
"No," Carrel purred. Her voice was peculiarly altered, sweet yet horrifying. "The entry codes to the TARDIS."
The Doctor's eyes went flat. "You won't. You can't!"
"Just imagine it, Time Lord," Stein snarled, "the TARDIS in our possession. With it, we could return to the prime of the Krillitane Empire! Take the Universe as our own!"
"I rather doubt it. Last person who had desires on the Universe? We didn't exactly get along."
"And you? Would you stop us? The man who detests violence, searching for the blood-free way out?"
"There's always a way." The Doctor's voice juxtaposed the statement. He was angry. Almost cold-blooded.
"So show us!" the three lecturers snarled in unison, grabbing their scalps and shucking off the skin to reveal the true Krillitane form as Jess had seen it the night before.
Something caught her eye. One of the monsters – the one that wore Mr Prinz's skin – had a burn mark on his left wing. Not like normal burns, either. It was charred skin, a reddish-black. Like bad sunburn.
"Hey! Krillitanes!" she shouted suddenly, waving her arms. "Come and catch me! I've got the TARDIS codes!"
"What are you…" the Doctor blustered, but before he could say anything, she bolted from the theatre, the snarling Krillitanes in pursuit.
Once Jess reached the most shade-free part of the grounds, she turned to the beasts and muttered under her breath, "Please let me be right."
She was.
As soon as the Krillitanes moved from under the shade of a tree, they exploded in a rain of blackened ash.
A stunned Doctor ran out and saw the remnants of the monsters fall from the sky. "Ha! So refined, yet so weak to sunlight. Must've never conquered a planet with sun exposure." He moved to her side. "How did you know that would work?"
Jess shrugged. "Just a hunch."
"Some hunch." He looked her deep in the eyes. Enough to make her blush, at least. "Your first name is Jessica, right? I saw it on the roll."
"Yeah, but I prefer Jess."
"To each their own. Well, Jess, have you ever wanted to see what lies beyond the horizon?"
She surprised herself by laughing. "Cheesy as that sounds, yeah."
"Well…" He dug into a pocket inside the lining of his jacket. "If you want, I could take you beyond that horizon." He produced a plain-looking key and placed it in her hand. It was strangely warm. "And beyond."
She arched an eyebrow and looked at him quizzically. "How far beyond?"
The Doctor grinned. "You'll see."