Follow Me Down Chapter 1

A/N: Hey guys! So this chapter was really difficult to write for me. One of my biggest problems with story telling just in general is pacing, and it doesn't help that this is quite literally my first stab at writing a coherent story in a over a year and a half. This chapter does so many different things and introduces so many different characters that it was hard to develop the plot while still giving proper time to introduce all of the new characters and set up the rest of the story. Anyways here is my best attempt at Follow Me Down Chapter 1!


It's bigger on the inside. That was the only thing Sean Speakman could bring himself to think at the moment. It was bigger on the inside. And not in the way that a house is more spacious on the inside than it looks like on the outside. It was actually, properly bigger on the inside.

Sean and his girlfriend Sara had stumbled into the phone booth to try to find some shelter from the torrential downpour that seemed to have come from absolutely nowhere. Now he was staring into an impossibly large room that looked like something straight out of an H.G. Wells novel.

"Who the hell are you?!"

He was so busy gawking at the existence of the room itself that he almost didn't notice the man standing there. He was about six feet tall with wild grey hair that went in every direction. He looked pale, almost sick. Sort of like Sean did after going on those binges where he'd play nothing but Mass Effect for hours on end, then look up and realize it was daylight outside.

"You know what, it doesn't really matter, because you'll be leaving right now," he said as he started pacing towards Sean.

Suddenly the whole floor exploded in movement, Sara starts screaming, and Sean dove headfirst back into reality. With all of the impossible things going on Sean had forgotten that she was there. He reaches over to her and grabs her arm in an attempt to keep her stabilized but she'd already grabbed onto the railing beside her and ended up stabilizing him more than anything else. Sean's attention snapped back to the center of the room where the man was dancing around a hexagonal console, fiddling with an assortment of buttons and switches and shouting an almost impressive amount of expletives.

Finally the man slammed his fist down on a big green button and the whole floor slammed to a stop. The sudden shock of it sent Sean reeling down the stairs in front of him and on to the cold metal grated floor.

Sean laid there for a moment, disoriented from the fall before he felt impossibly strong hands pick him up from the ground and push him against the metal console. He came face to face with the man's wrinkled face.

"Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS."

Sara, who was still clutching the railing despite the lack of movement, told the man to let Sean go, but the man simply told her to hush before turning back to Sean.

"I repeat, who are you and what are you doing on my ship?"

Sean, still VERY confused and slightly scared managed to compose himself, "look I have no problem with telling you but first let me go."

The man looked at him for a second, and then let go of him, looking rather ashamed that his first response had been violence.

The man looked at Sean, the fire in his eyes dying down to a calm level.

"I'm sorry," he said, Scottish accent blaring, "it's been a long few days... I'm the Doctor." He held out a steady hand which Sean took and shook cautiously. Something about this man told Sean that he could be very dangerous if he wanted to be.

"Doctor who?"

"Just the Doctor," the Doctor answered, sounding like he was tired of answering that question all of the time.

This time Sara, who had finally let go of the railing and begun to walk towards the two, piped in. "Well that's nice and all, but can you please tell me where the hell we are?" Sean recognized that tone, Sara was pissed.

The Doctor smirked a little and Sean noted how the Doctor seemed to sort of enjoy the fact that Sara was a little demanding.

The Doctor turned back to Sean, "I asked first."

The Doctor began pacing and working on the console as Sean began to talk.

"Well we were walking to Cannery Ballroom for a concert and then it started pouring down rain. We ran through an alleyway looking for cover and we saw a phone booth, and walked into it and then we were here."

By this time the Doctor had checked a screen that protruded from the console, and was now walking towards the door.

"Now you answer our question," Sean demanded.

Placing his hands on the door, the Doctor shouted over his shoulder, "Well it's not a phone booth first off. And secondly I don't know, but I fully intend to find out." With that, he opened the door and walked into the engulfing darkness beyond it.


The Doctor looked around, his eyes adjusting to the darkness. Already he could see what looked like the inner workings of a space ship.

With surprising courage, the man that had accidentally stumbled into the TARDIS earlier emerged. The man looked back at the TARDIS, just making sure that it looked as he remembered it.

"How does it do that," he asked in awe.

The Doctor, who was looking at a very interesting piece of human machinery, looked back at the man. "Oh that," he said as if not knowing what he was talking about, "elementary my dear, Watson. It's called Dimensional Transcendentalism."

Still eyes fixed on the TARDIS, the man replied, "Sean."

"Huh?"

"My name, it's Sean. And my girlfriend's name is Sara."

On cue Sara emerged from the TARDIS, a little more cautious than Sean's did as the Doctor pretended to turn his attention back to the generator he was standing beside.

"How is it bigger on the inside?" Sara apparently hadn't heard the same question asked five seconds before.

"Dimensional Transcendentalism," Sean told her as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh I like him," the Doctor thought.

"So can you please tell me where we are and how we got here," when she spoke the Doctor recognized her tone. She was trying to stay in control of things, and she was so out of her depth she didn't know what to do.

"It appears that we are on a spaceship of some sort," the Doctor answered. He looked back at the couple to gage their reaction. They both seemed shocked, but in different ways. Sara seemed scared, but Sean seemed excited and curious.

He looked at them and actually paid attention to them for the first time. Sean stood about 5'8", skinny, and had short brown hair. The Doctor could see the callouses on the fingers of his left hand and recognized them as guitarist's callouses. He had tan skin, and a face full of freckles. He was wearing slim fit jeans and a Colony House graphic tee.

Sara stood beside Sean, and just about a half an inch shorter than him. She had long blonde hair that dropped down to her shoulder. Piercing grey eyes stood out from her porcelain skin.

They two of them were very interesting. Sean seemed very calm and collected and despite just being told that he was on a spaceship, he seemed to not be startled in the least. Sara on the other hand seemed headstrong and defiant, but still sort of startled when she was out of her element like she was.

She reminds me of Clara.

As he thought that, the door to the room slid open, and white light exploded into the dark room. A figure stood in the doorway, and a very commanding voice told the trio to get on their knees.

The Doctor huffed and did as the voice commanded as he told himself that today could seriously not get any longer.


This day could not be any longer.

Sara tried to act brave as God-knows-who had marched her, Sean, and some crazy man who calls himself the Doctor God-Knows-Where. It had already been one heck of a day. She had gotten rained on, accidentally stowed away on some ship of some sort that was somehow bigger on the inside. And then on top of all that, she had apparently landed on another spaceship where she was then taken captive along with Sean and the Doctor and the three of them were now handcuffed to a bed.

And worst of all was her clothes were still drenched from the rain.

"So if you don't mind me asking," she spoke in a not so nice and calm way, "could you please explain to me, where we are and how we got here. And more importantly how the hell we are going to get out."

The Doctor sighed as if the question was unreasonable before answering, "The TARDIS, the ship you stumbled into earlier, it's a time-space ship that can travel anywhere and anywhen in the universe. And as to where we are, it would appear by the architecture that we are on a spaceship in the late 21st century."

Sara stared over at the man in disbelief for a second, and everything in her wanted to scream. She wanted to get up and shake this man until she felt better. And the worst part was Sean was completely calm. He had been through the same experience she had. He saw an apparent time machine that was bigger on the inside, he was taken from the streets of Nashville to God-knows-where, and now he was handcuffed to a bed, and he seemed completely fine with all of it.

Sean, probably sensing Sara's fear and frustration, decided to speak up for her, "so why are we being held captive."

"I honestly don't know," the Doctor told them almost ominously, "but I intend to find out."

As if on cue, the door slid open and in walked the man Sara instantly recognized as the man who had taken them captive. He had dark brown skin and very intense green eyes that would be very lovely if they didn't belong to a man who might kill her. He had black hair that curled tightly on top of his head, and he stood at about six feet. His clothing was very simple, and he donned a long black coat with what looked like a worn military patch on the sleeve.

"I'm Captain Nick Romero of the cargo transporter Mercury," he introduced himself, his voice all the bit commanding as earlier but with a British accent that Sara didn't hear earlier, "as of two hours ago a member of my crew has gone missing. Now I don't want to assume you three had anything to do with that... but you aren't supposed to be on my ship. So here's the deal, you have one chance to tell me why and how you're on this ship. If you lie, I will assume that you're the one who took Bevvie and I will treat you accordingly. Understand?"

A deafening silence filled the room and Sara all of a sudden found it very hard to breath. Suppose that they did tell the truth, they would be saying that they accidentally stumbled onto a time machine, accidentally landed on a spaceship, where they proceeded to accidentally trespass.

Yep, he's definitely going to kill us.

The silence seemed to go on forever as Sara thought of what she could possibly say to get out of this mess. Everything felt like a dream, as if she was going to wake up back in her dorm room in Alabama covered in sweat and terribly late for Biology.

She was just about to start speaking when the Doctor cut in.

"I'm the Doctor," He said in a very confident manner, as if he was God himself and as if every word he spoke brought life and death, "I'm over two-thousand years old and I'm a Time traveler from the planet Gallifrey. This lovely young couple stumbled on to my time ship earlier. My ship then malfunctioned and brought us here... any questions?"

There was another moment of silence, as Captain Nick Romero stood there in apparent contemplation. He seemed to believe that the Doctor believed what he was saying, but thought that he could either be a really good lier or just a complete psychopath.

Romero let out a sigh and his shoulder's slumped. "Thank you," he said, his tone changing from commanding to sorrowful, "I really wasn't looking forward to killing anyone today."

He reached deep into his coat pockets and fished out a small metal key, which he used to unlock their handcuffs. After they were freed from their bonds, Nick led them out of the room they were in, into a larger one.

The thing that seemed the oddest about this room to Sara was the lighting. Every time she would see a science fiction movie (which albeit was not very often) the spaceship would be lit by fluorescent white lights, like those in a hospital. However, the Mercury was lit by dim earthy light that reminded her more of the night light she had in her room when she was a child.

Sara looked around and tried to figure out the purpose of the room. It looked like a dining room and kitchen spliced with a conference room. The floor was very open, with a large oval conference table in the center. On the far side past the table, a sink and stove top sat next to what was possibly a futuristic sort of refrigerator. The side of the room right beside the room had many different corridors that all branched out to different areas of the ship.

Around the table, stood what Sara only assumed were the crew of the mercury. Sara honestly figured they'd have color coded uniforms, like the crew of the USS Enterprise. Instead they looked more like a bunch of homeless people than a crew of a spaceship. Their clothes were ragged and torn, drab and dull like those of a mechanic or a construction worker. Their faces were mixed with emotions: worry, anger, anxiety… and they were all staring at her.

"They had nothing to do with Bevvie's disappearance," Romero tried to break the tension in the room, but it didn't seem to work. The artificial air of the Mercury was still poisoned with a whole concoction of negative emotions.

The next person to speak up was one of the crew of the Mercury. He was a stick of a man with ghost white skin oily dirty blonde hair. "Then why the hell are they on this ship."

Captain Romero opened his mouth to explain, but the Doctor managed to get an answer out first.

"My name is John Smith, Codename: The Doctor," He pulled what looked like a badge holder from his pocket and flashed it at the tall, sickly looking man.

The man snatched it from the Doctor's hands and held it close to his face for inspection. "You work for UNIT," the man asked in disbelief.

"I do," the Doctor said, thinking on his feet, "In fact, I'm their head scientific advisor, and these are my two research techs, Sean and Sara."

This time another member of the Mercury crew spoke up. She was tall and fit, with black hair that had square bangs and was pulled up in a ponytail. "What type of scientist gets two research techs?"

"Only the best ones," the Doctor replied with gusto. He was starting to show a charming side that Sara hadn't seen up until now. "We were using an experimental piece of equipment that can faze through matter and accidentally happened to board your ship. Now you said something about a missing person?"

Nick looked at him, obviously not being okay with the fact that the Doctor had just lied to his crew. However, he must've assumed that it was easier to go along with the lie than to tell the truth, as he let it slide.

"Yeah Bevvie," Nick responded, sort of sorrowfully, "she's been missing for five hours. The last time we docked was seven hours ago, and she was with me when we took off, so she has to be on the ship."

Sean, apparently feeling confident enough in his situation at the moment decided to speak up next. "What about escape pods?"

Everyone went silent and for a second and Sara assumed Sean had offended them in some way (he actually had a talent in finding roundabout ways to insult people). Another one of the crew, a girl with blood red hair and a pale, freckled-riddled face, decided to answer him. "This is a cargo transport, it doesn't have an escape pod."

"Oh," Sean said, trying to downplay his ignorance on the subject, "Sorry, just wasn't using my head."

Sara leaned over and whispered in Sean's ear, "Maybe you should let the Doctor do the talking."

The Doctor took control of the conversation once again. "Which one of you saw Bevvie last?"

A small woman from the other side of the room raised her hand as if she was in a classroom, which Sara thought was a little odd, but considering she was supposedly who-knew-how-many years into the future, she decided to let it go. Who knew, maybe raising your hand was a social norm in this time.

"Hello there," the Doctor said in a sweet voice, "raising your hand isn't necessary. What's your name?"

"Hello, I'm Sol Hakido," Sol spoke in a very slight voice. It reminded Sara of how she would talk when she was babysitting and didn't want to wake a sleeping child. "I was the last one to see Bev. She said she was going down to the cargo hold to check inventory."

The Doctor snapped his finger, "There we go then, that's where we'll check."

"Don't you think we've already looked there," the skinny man said in a way that Sara didn't particularly like at all.

The shade being thrown his way from this man didn't seem to faze the Doctor very much. She noticed a smirk growing across his face, "Well you didn't have me last time."


It shocked the Doctor how quickly Sean and Sara were adapting to their surroundings. In the past 40 minutes, they had discovered that aliens were real, learned that time travel was possible, and volunteered to help search for a missing person on a spaceship. Their resilience reminded him slightly of the Ponds.

And on top of that the cargo bay was really creepy.

The only real light source in the room were the dim white bar lights coming from the walls. Shadows casted by the crates of all different shapes and sizes danced up the metallic grey walls.

Something was very wrong, the Doctor could taste it, feel it. It tasted metallic, like blood and felt as if lightning filled the air. The worst thing was he had felt it before. Sometime lifetimes ago, he had sensed this exact feeling, but he couldn't quite put his finger on when.

The Doctor's thoughts were interrupted by Sara speaking. Her voice echoed through the metallic room. "So why would the captain of a cargo transporter carry a gun and own multiple pairs of handcuffs?"

Oh, she really is clever.

"I was a member of Her Majesty's Armed Forces during the Cyberwar," Nick turned around to backpedal so that he could face Sara when he spoke. "After the war, I retired and bought a cargo freighter. Figured it would be a nice change of pace after getting shot at."

"My Dad was in the military," Sean paused for a moment before continuing, "I mean, not the same one."

Nick turned back around, "so you guys are from another time right? Where—" he paused for a second in thought, "I mean, when are you from."

Sean smiled a bit at the saying, then continued. "2017 to be exact." Sean pulled his iPhone out of his pocket and flashed it at Nick.

Nick continues talking but the Doctor stops listening.

Something was very wrong. That feeling the Doctor had felt had begun to intensify and was now filling every fiber of his being, overwhelming him with a sense of dread. So he did the thing he did best when he didn't know something, he whipped out his sonic screwdriver and started scanning.

Blue light and a sonar noise emitted from the end. The Doctor scanned the screwdriver across the room, the sonar noise increasing in rate until it was a steady stream of noise.

"Over there, behind that crate," the Doctor pointed to the half opened crate across the room. Sean and Nick both rushed over to it and moved it out of the way.

Behind it lay the skeletal remains of an unidentified human... probably Bevvie.

Nick stared at the bones in a mixture of disbelief and horror. "Is that Bevvie?"

"Presumably," the Doctor answered as he scanned the remains and read off the readings. "Human, female, age: 23."

"Yeah that's her," Nick looked at the body obviously grieving the loss of his friend.

Sean was the first to speak up, "Nick, I'm sorry. I know it really doesn't mean much, but I'm sorry for your loss."

Nick looked up at him with a thankful smile, "thanks, man. It's not your fault." He then turned to the Doctor, "what the hell could have done this."

The Doctor was about to answer when the ship lurched and the cargo hold went completely black.


A/N: Well there you go. Please review and tell me what you think! Sorry this chapter took so long to write. Hopefully the next one won't take as long.