"Where to now?" The Doctor asked, that maniac light in his bright blue eyes.
I, Martha Jones, was a time traveler with the Doctor, an alien Timelord from a planet called Gallifrey, the last of his kind. His time machine, from the outside, was a blue London police box from the 1960s, but on the inside, it was huge. Shaped like a teardrop, copper walls studded with lights rose around us, leaning into a center column, light brown with glowing blue tubes within. When the TARDIS (standing for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space) was driving, the tubes would go up and down, and the control panel was used to drive the device. As for now, the TARDIS was parked in an alley somewhere in London, near the hospital I used to work at before I met the Doctor.
As for now though... where did I want to go?
"I dunno... Anywhere!" I say, grinning back at him.
Suddenly the light in his eyes grew into an excited wildfire. "Oh, I know something you'll enjoy, alright."
He reached to pull the lever that would start the TARDIS, but the thing took off on its own.
Quickly, we grabbed onto the console. TARDIS rides could be very rough indeed, being tossed and turned in every way through time and space, but this was different. It was like we were shooting directly upwards; we were being thrown to the floor. I noticed the Doctor manage to turn on the monitor, which would show us where we were going. He looked up at it, then emitted a sharp, "What?"
I made my way over to him. The readings were impossible to read- they were in Gallifreyian, after all- but he seemed confused. That was never good; his IQ was far superior to any human's. "What is it?"
"It's like the TARDIS is taking us somewhere..." he said, still staring up at the screen, gears in his head turning at full speed. "That's just... no. She never does that. It's never this urgent. She'll mess us up, try to lead us her direction, but she never just takes off..."
If times had been better, I would have rolled my eyes at the Doctor for calling the TARDIS a "she." But now wasn't exactly the time for that. "What... Where is it taking us?"
He looked up at the screen, reading it again. "It's locked onto someone's DNA..." then his eyes widened. "No..."
If I wasn't worried before, I certainly was now. "What is it?"
"That DNA... It's the DNA of-"
He was interrupted by an abrupt landing. The pressure from above was gone, and we fell to the ground. He stood up, still looking at the readings.
"Doctor," I asked, serious. "What type of DNA is it?"
He gave the screen one last look. "It's like... a hybrid. It's like... half human, half Timelord."
My eyes widened. The Doctor's planet, Gallifrey, had long been destroyed by the Daleks, a race of robot hybrids with feelings only of hatred, bloodlust, and powerthirst. A hybrid Timelord meant trouble for sure; the Doctor wasn't exactly popular among the survivors, who had been trapped in a rift in time (which did count as dying, since they didn't really exist.)
I opened the doors and walked outside. It looked like we were in England, wherever we were. The sky was cloudy, the ground was wet, and the air had that metallic smell it always does after it rains.
That was when we heard the scream.
Before you could say "Pwoper," the Doctor and I were out of the TARDIS, the doors closed and locked, and running towards the sound. We were always running, but usually it was from something, not to it. Whatever the case, we ran. I had a feeling whoever was in trouble, it was just normal city crime, not extraterrestrial; the area we had landed in wasn't exactly the best, after all.
A minute or so later we arrived at the scene. On the ground lay a teenage boy, tall and skinny, with longish blond hair. He was beaten, cut and bruised, and looked as if he were in immense pain. He looked up at me, his silver eyes saying, "Kill me now, make it end." But I wasn't about to let that happen.
"Are you okay?" I asked, kneeling down to get a closer look at him.
"Well, he's obviously not okay," the Doctor quipped sarcastically.
"Oh, shush," I said, scanning him for major injuries. It didn't look like he had any bones broken, but he was losing a lot of blood, and his shoulder looked dislocated. Plus, with open wounds and such, lying on the dirty, wet ground was probably not the best option for him; he was wearing a jacket, but the water would probably soak through anyways.
"Is it okay if I try to help you?" I asked, ignoring the bzzzt bzzzzzzzzt of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver behind me as he scanned the area for signs of alien life. He nodded, but barely, and when he did, he gasped, gulping down tears. The gasp made him cough, spraying blood all over the soggy ground.
I placed my hands around his shoulder, remembering what they had taught me in medical school about relocating shoulders. I looked at him again and said, "This is going to hurt a bit, okay?"
When he nodded, I closed my eyes and pushed, as hard as I could, until I felt the bone slide back into its natural position. I heard the boy gasp in pain, and try to gulp down tears again, but this time they came, flowing like a river, mixing with the blood from a scratch on his cheek. In the background I could hear the Doctor muttering worriedly, but I tried to ignore it for the time being.
"Is there someone I can call to take you home?" I asked him, helping him sit up. He tried to talk, but he had gone through a lot of shock, and was in a lot of pain, and all he could manage was slight, pained nod.
"Can you give me their number, or does your mouth hurt too much?"
He shook his head. As he did so, a trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth, a delicate reminder of whatever he had been through.
"Can you give me anything? Your name, your address?"
He nodded shyly. Obviously he didn't want to give away his name. He opened his mouth to speak, but all he could manage was to cough blood into my face. I wiped it off; I had seen worse. He gasped for breath again, trying to communicate.
"D-D-Dom," he spluttered. He grabbed onto my shoulders for support. "D-Dom -Oward."
The name rang a bell in my memory, but I couldn't place my finger quite on it. "Dom Howard?"
He nodded, then passed out into my arms.
"Martha," the Doctor said, walking over to me, "we need to get out of here."
"But we can't just leave him like this! He's in no position to fight!"
"Martha, something is here. Something is looking for Timelord DNA, and if it finds me..."
The Doctor's words seemed to fade away as I realized where I had heard the name Dom Howard.
"Doctor, have you heard of a band called Muse?"
"Martha, we really don't have time to ponder music ri-"
"This kid is gonna be their drummer."
He paused for a second, then turned around and walked over to him, slowly, as if trying not to wake him. He knelt down by the boy's beat up figure, and lightly scanned him with the sonic. When he found what he was looking for, he stood up, put the sonic away, and said, "Right then. So he is. But he's never seen Matt Bellamy in his life."
I heard footsteps, running to us from behind. I turned around to see a slightly younger boy running up. This one was skinnier, with black hair and silver-blue eyes. Something clicked in my brain...
If the boy I was holding was Dominic Howard...
"Oh my God," he gasped when he saw Dom collapsed in my arms. "I- will he be all right?"
"With some rest, food and water, probably," I told him, nodding. "He doesn't have any major injuries, though some of his teeth appear to have been knocked out."
"Holy- woah..."
His shining eyes filled with guilt. "I should have gotten here faster."
"Oh, don't think like that," I told him, shifting my weight. "What's your name?"
For a second his eyes passed to the Doctor, who was sonicing him from a short distance away. Then they passed to Dom, who lay unconscious in my lap. After deciding we were good people, he looked back to me and said, "Matt. Matt Bellamy."
The Doctor looked up. "Wha?"
He looked over at the Doctor, confused. "I'm Matt Bellamy. Is that a pwoblem?"
"No, no, no, not at all," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "It's just-"
Suddenly the sky darkened- not rainy dark, but like, nighttime dark. A sort of scanning beam emitted from the sky on Dom and I. I shielded my eyes, and the beam turned off. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the Doctor grab Matt and hide him between some crates.
When the ship decided we weren't what it was looking for, it passed. Matt emerged from the crates, confused. "What on Earth was that?"
The Doctor looked at him, worried, and said, "Space police. They're looking for either two people; me, or you."
Matt's eyes widened. "What have I-? How did they-"
"I don't know. I wish I did, but I don't." Then, quieter, "I don't like that, not knowing. Rather annoying. Anyways..." He fell back on topic, wandering around in circles. "Don't worry about me. Go home, hang out with your family, don't tell them you're being pursued by alien police. Tends to raise awkward questions." When Matt looked at him like he was insane, he said, "I was like you once. But that was nine hundred years ago."
And, with that, Matt seemed to decide he was both incredibly mad and incredibly smart at the same time. Still staring at us, he started walking backwards, then turned around and ran home.