Let's be honest, here: I'm writing for my own benefit, which is to stay awake (and to amuse myself). I am perfectly willing to openly admit that I am inserting myself into the story, but no, it's not going to turn into a mushy-gushy the-doctor-loves-me story (as much as I wish that would happen in real life).
Good? Good. Now how about you snuggle up under your covers and turn on some mood music. (I recommend SHINee's LUCIFER, but that's mostly because I'm enamored of the song, not because it's a good fit to the story. Or maybe it is. You be the judge.) Ready? Let's begin.
Doctor Who Are You: One of those fics where I randomly insert myself into the Doctor Who universe and drive everyone insane.
Chapter One: In Which I Need to Fall Asleep But Can't Because "Cats" Won't Stop Playing on iTunes
She couldn't keep her eyes open anymore. It was nine o'clock on New Year's Eve – not even late on New Year's Eve! – and she couldn't even keep her eyes open. Her laptop sat humming on her legs as she rested her head against the backboard of her bed, the screen displaying pictures and animations and videos of her most recent fandom.
"Hey, Meg, we've got shrimp and cheese and crackers to snack on downstairs if you'd like," said her dad through her bedroom door.
Meghan sighed. "I'm not hungry," she replied, eying the empty bag of chocolate chips on the floor, "and I'm planning on turning in early, anyway. Thanks, though."
"Alight, then." She knew her dad was rolling his eyes out in the hallway.
Her eyes felt so heavy. Why were her eyes so heavy! Really the only thing keeping her awake was the fact that her iTunes was playing the worst songs in succession. "I do NOT want to listen to Cats!" she complained, clicking her mouse on the "next" arrow with frustration and vengeance.
Another song from Cats came on: "Prologue: Jellicle Songs For Jellicle Cats".
Meg slammed her head against the bed's backboard. "This is ridiculous. Cats, Cats, jazz, more Cats–I have over twenty-seven hundred songs on this thing, and all it wants to play is Cats. Really, now?"
With drooping eyes, she brought up Tumblr on her laptop screen and started scrolling, all the while humming "Grizabella, The Glamour Cat".
"Oh, whaddya know," she slurred after a full minute of Robert Sheehan pictures, and chuckled slightly, looking at the clock. "It's already next year across the pond. Ha ha. If someone from there were to come here, that would kinda be like time travel, wouldn't it. Across the pond, they'd come, to the past! And then back to the future—unless they stayed here until midnight, when it would be back to the present from the present, from one side of the pond to the other, like little time-travelling leap frogs.
"Veritable time travelers! They do exist. They might exist. Well, they potentially could exist. I need to tell somebody. I need to let the world know! Time-travelling leap frogs. Where's my phone, where's my phone?"
She frantically searched her bedspread for her ever-elusive phone as her eyes opened and closed, opened and closed, threatening to take her to sleep. "No, no, no, no, no! I need…to tell someone…about…the leap frogs…"
As her fingers finally clasped around her little, pink Verizon Cosmos, she let out a tired sigh and toppled over her pillow, eyes finally closing and staying shut until—
Meghan bolted upright, eyes wide-open. "WHAT on this earth is that NOISE?" she groaned. "WHO would be trying to start a lawn-mower at THIS HOUR OF THE NIGHT!"
And from the sounds of it, thought Meg irritably, they aren't very successful at starting it up.
Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she thumped down the stairs and clamored into the kitchen. "MOM! DAD!"
There was no response.
"MOM! DAD! Who's starting up the lawn mower?"
As she entered the living room, she saw her mom and dad sleeping and snoring on the couch in front of the television.
She rolled her eyes and then ran towards the front door as she heard those strange, groaning sounds again, any thought of texting her friends about time-travelling leap frogs fleeing from her mind. A giant BOOM shook the floor of her house, and there was the sound of a door opening and shutting—and some loud-yet-unintelligible arguing that she couldn't quite understand.
Meghan stood still for a moment, sweaty palms on the door knob. Her heart pounded in her chest, but whether from apprehension, excitement, or the sugary chocolate chips she had consumed earlier, she couldn't tell.
A minute passed, then two, then three. There had been silence for a while, so she surmised that whoever had been fooling around with that goddamn lawn-mower was gone by now.
It didn't occur to her at that moment that lawn-mowers didn't have doors that opened and closed. In fact, they didn't have doors at all—and she had distinctly heard a door.
Gathering all her courage and curiosity, Meghan headed outside. She shivered in the brisk and cold air and blinked a few times.
Then, "What a fancy lawn-mower!" she murmured, approaching a large, blue, box-like thing. "I don't think I've ever seen one like this before. It must've been expensive." She paused for a second, then placed her hand on the wooden thing. "And no wonder it made such a funny noise."
She circled the funny lawn-mower and found a—it couldn't be, could it?—a door. Meg tried the handle, and it was unlocked.
Looking around her quickly to make sure no one was watching, she pushed the lawn-mower's door open—cringing slightly as it squeaked—and stepped inside.
"What," she said, and then ran back outside to circle the blue box. "No, no, that's not right. It's small, see, I can circle it, I can almost hug it, but…but…it's bigger on the inside?" She stepped back inside just to make sure what she saw was true, back inside the cursed thing, with its bright bleeping lights and lots of buttons and levers and a lower floor and a high, domed ceiling. "Yeah," she continued in a dazed and feeble voice, slumping down to the golden floor, "this must've been a really, really expensive lawn-mower."
1 youtube .com /watch?v=cdyYGmibal4 — the strange, groaning, I-think-a-lawn-mower-is-starting sound, in case you'd like some legitimate effects