Thank you notwritten, CalicoKitty402, Guest, Doctor and Bad Wolf for reviewing.

Here's another chapter. Sorry for slow update. I hope to post the third chapter relatively soon. Thank you to everyone else for reading.


Again

Mary sighs and runs her left hand through her hair. She looks out the window to her right. It was the middle of August. The leaves were bright reds, vibrant oranges, stale browns and many shades of green still. The trees near her house were always slow to change. It was almost winter now and winter reminded her of him. That strange old man with the strange phone booth.

She laughs, a small laugh that to some would sound more like a squeak. It had been nearly a year since their small encounter and yet she found herself completely enthralled by the thought of him. Her newest book had sold only a few hundred copies. A story about a young man fighting his way through life's physics and scientists as he sought after the concept of time travel. It had more than just a handful of critics. She understood their points. What she suggested was impossible beyond relief. She wasn't even a scientist yet there she was writing about one of the most complicated sciences around. She hadn't interviewed anyone who studied the theory or even read that many articles. Still, she felt she had read enough to write a children's story about time travel. Too bad for her she hadn't written it proper enough. It was too much baloney for anyone to take it seriously. Well, that was too bad.

Sighing she sets her hands behind her head. It was still fun to write it. Mary lets her eyes drift slowly back to the window. Maybe she needed some air. Maybe a little walk will help her write as it always had. Maybe. Yet she stays in her chair, staring at the glass baring looking past the window itself. Maybe she was just wishful to spot that old man again. She has so many questions for that man, the Doctor. What a silly name, yet it fit him. It fits him well.

There's a knock on the door. She rises from her chair and crosses her study's threshold. She slips on her slippers that sat by her study's doorframe, before she walks over to the door. The hallway outside was always colder than her apartment. She opens the door only to be greeted by a cheerful voice from an imposing character.

"You're late." Says the man before her. The man was nearly bald and had a smirk on his face. He wore a leather jacket and his demeanor was one of someone who had seen it all and was no longer affected by the travesties of life, despite that grin on his face. It was clearly a two-faced one. "You kept me waiting so I came to see what was holding you up." He closes his eyes and his smile grows before he shoves his way past her and into her apartment.

"Excuse me, but what are you doing?" She asks following him, leaving the door open behind her, as he walks through her apartment and sits at the dining room table. He props his feet up on the chair across from him.

"Sitting down. Hey do you have any chips? Jelly babies or some soup maybe?" He asks looking around. There were four rooms in the house that he saw. The study was closest, besides that a few feet from that door was what he supposed was the bedroom. He was clearly sitting in the dining room which was the first room from the door. To his right was the doorway that he bet led to the kitchen. It was in the same place as it had been last time here.

"Jelly babies, chips, and soup? Sir, I don't even know who you are." Mary argues as she begins to inch her way over to the phone on the wall.

"Of course you do. Haven't you met me yet? Hmm, maybe you just don't recognise this face. I thought you would have already met me a few times by now."

"What?" Mary asks, her confusion was evident on her face and she was growing more alarmed that a mad man might have just walked into her house. The door was still open though, she could make a run for it if he becomes aggressive, and she was almost to the phone now as well. Then he says something that freezes her slowly moving feet.

"Having you met the old man yet at least? What year is it?" He asks before standing up and looking around for a calendar. He wanders into the kitchen and Mary chases after him.

"What old man?" Mary asks. "How do you not know what year it is?"

"Isn't it obvious by now?" The leather clad man asks as Mary's face changes into one of realization then incredulous belief. Then she smiles a little with her eyebrows raise. It was the expression she used when she had solved something but wasn't quite ready to trust the answer she knew to be true.

"You aren't trying to say that you're the doctor right?" He was the only old man she had meant and didn't know from years before hand.

"Bingo. Took you long enough. Have you really not met this version yet."

"Version?"

"Ah, that explains it." He walks out holding a calendar. "So you haven't met anyone yet, but the old man. No wonder you were so late. I thought maybe you were under attack. Eh, guess not. That's sort of boring."

"The fact that my life isn't in danger is boring?" Mary asks not quite believing what she was hearing. Who would purposely risk another's life and throw them in danger so the day isn't boring?

"Yeah. Then again our whole talks are usually boring. So long with nothing to do and nothing else happening." He says and tosses the calendar over his shoulder. He opens the fridge and grabs a soda out of it. He lifts the tab and the air inside escapes with a hiss before he drinks it. Part of the fizz getting caught on his lips. He wipes his mouth clean using the end of his sleeve.

"Then why do you bother talking to me? And how are you the doctor?"

"It's called regeneration? If I'm dying I can regenerate. New face, new body, new mind, sometimes a new view on things. I swear some of my other regenerations were color blind, or deaf maybe. That would explain how everything felt at times." He says getting off track.

"So you are a regeneration of the old man?" She heard what she was saying but still wasn't sure if he wasn't just a crazy man.

"Yeah. That's not so complicated after all, you see." He looks back at his drink and finishes before walking around to the trash can and tossing it in. "Got anymore?" He asks and she grabs his arm and pulls him over to one of the seats.

"First you sit. I have some questions."

He shrugs and waits for her to start.

"First off how did you get here?"

"In the tardis."

"What happened to the other doctor?

"Which one?"

"There are more than just two versions of you?"

"Yep. I'm on my ninth life."

"Wow. Nine lives, the stories you must know."

"Weren't I being questioned here?" He asks with a raise of his eyebrow.

"Ah yes, well what happened to the doctor I met? Who was the doctor I met?"

"The first me. I call him the old man. He died of old age."

"But you're alive? If he died you should be dead."

"Okay forced into regeneration because of old age." He says. The annoyance in his voice rang clear. "Every regeneration is different from the last." He became solemn. "So everytime I regenerate the old me dies. Replaced by a different person. So yes, in a way, he did die, and now I live."

"So we'll meet again?"

"Spoilers, but I think I already gave that much away. So, yeah. Don't ask when or where though. Can't go messing with the past now."

"So my future is your past?"

"Part of it. One of me from the future, well MY future, could visit you after I'm gone."

"Wow, this is incredible."

He smiles as her face shows her amazement. "Time travel, is real."

"I thought you already knew that."

"Well, I, he didn't explain it much before I fell through the tardis's doors and left."

"You did stumble out. It was quite a sight." The ninth doctor says jokingly as he recalls the end of their first encounter.

"I guess I shouldn't have stated such a foolish statement. Still, wow." Mary was replaying the scene in her own mind when she recalls the other two who had been there. There was two other humans who were with the doctor then, certainly out of their own time in her world from their style in clothing.

"What about your friends? The two who were travelling with you then. Oh, and your granddaughter? Did you ever see her again?" Mary asks hoping the doctor had good news about his relationship with his granddaughter.

He mulls it over, remaining silent as Mary awaits her answers. She takes this moment to look over the smaller details of his clothes and face. It had small scars. For a new face it looks as if it has had years of use. Maybe this face wasn't all that new. He could have had it for years and been on countless adventures and she wouldn't know because it could simply be days for her.

"I have not seen her in a long time, but the last time we met I think we did clear the air a bit." An awkward silence fills the stale air in the flat.

"It's a bit stuffy in here. I'll open a window." Mary says remembering her need for fresh air earlier now. She crosses the carpeted floor, towards one of the two windows against the very back wall. She had to unlock it first, then with a quick shove the window lifts upwards. "There. A nice breath of fresh air." She says, smiling as she takes in a deep breath of the sweet fall air.

"You always did like the fall. Makes me wonder why we agreed to meet at least once a year in the winter." The Doctor says, speaking to himself. It was a moment before he turns his head and takes notice of the look Mary was giving him. It was her always so inquisitive look. It meant she was catching onto something she shouldn't be because he was fool enough to let it slip.

"The winter? We meet once a year? Why?" She asks her questions with a steady pace.

He turns his head away from her and the window. Taking interest in the almost empty can in his hand. He begins rolling it back and forth between them. The Doctor finishes the drink quickly before he began throwing the can about. Performing trick after trick with it as he tosses it in the air, while still remaining in his chair.

"You weren't suppose to hear that."

"Why not?"

"Because as far as I know you didn't know it before." He states causally, still playing with his can.

Mary remains quiet as she thinks through it. "Is, well is this going to be a problem? Me knowing? I mean you couldn't prove whether if I knew or not before. Maybe I did and just didn't say a word."

He leans his head over the back of the already leaning chair. Mary thought for a second he was going to fall as he smiles a big flashy smile. It was contagious, Mary finds out as a grin grew on her face as well.

"Well we won't find out till later now will we?" He says as he lets the chair fall back onto all fours. He stands up and tosses the can into the wastebasket by the kitchen door frame. He adjusts his jacket and fixes the cuffs of it. "This is typically when I invite someone to come on an adventure with me, but I know you won't say yes. So I'll be heading out now. See you again soon?"

Mary wasn't sure if she was happy or sad by his assumption. She certainly wanted to go on an adventure through time and space, but he had already decided. She didn't want to press her luck or chase him off so she just smiles. She tries to make it a genuine and non-disappointing smile. Really she did, but she wasn't sure if it worked or not. Something in The Doctor's eyes changed slightly but other then that he doesn't let on that it didn't work. How could she know if the change in his eyes was really a sign that he knew or not. She was probably just imagining things about this mysterious traveler.

"Anytime you want Doctor." Was her reply.

"Fantastic."

She moves towards the door to let him out. It only was the polite thing to do and she wanted him to come back and talk to her more. She desperately wanted to be entertained by this strange doctor again. However, he beat her to the door and lets himself out. He pauses in shutting it behind himself.

"Don't worry. You'll see me again. It just might not be me next time. Have a good few months Mary." He says and shuts the door.

She wasn't sure why but she felt that, that last sentence had been uncharacteristically nice of him. She had no reason to think that. She had never meant this doctor before. Maybe he was just like that, but somehow it strikes her as odd. "Have a good few months." She repeats wondering why he had said that. A good few months. Did the doctor always say goodbye that way? She didn't let the matter drop from her mind entirely but she didn't fret over it constantly either.

"Have a good life Doctor." She truly hoped that this Doctor did.


Thank you for taking the time to read more. Until next time. Can't wait to see write which Doctor shall be next.