Chapter 1

The Doctor was very strange, I concluded quickly, even as I followed him out into the night. I had been taught stranger-danger in primary school but I honestly couldn't think of a reason not to trust him. Besides, he'd said he'd show me a spaceship! A real-life spaceship! It wasn't an opportunity I was going to pass up. So I tugged on my trainers and grabbed my winter coat off the back of the door, making sure to stuff my key in a pocket.

"Where are we going, Doctor?"

"I parked her just down the street. Its only a quick peek inside, mind, and then I'll drop you back home to your biscuits."

"Mmhm." I hummed, walking as fast as I could to keep up with the Doctor's long strides. I let out a small sound of confusion as he stopped in front of a large blue box.

"Police box?" I read slowly. The box was about twice the height of me, with two square windows and a sign across the top saying 'Police 'Public Call' Box', whatever that was. "What's a Police Box? Are you a policeman?" I questioned.

He smiled mysteriously, not saying anything as he fished a key out of his pocket. I was still looking up at the box in wonder when he pushed the door open.

"Come on then." He pushed me forward slightly.

"But...WHAT!?" I blushed at my shout but didn't think anymore on it. Although it had only been a box on the outside, on the inside it was an entire room! It was like a whole other dimension.

"Is it another dimension?" I turned to the Doctor. He smiled slightly, although his eyes seemed sad.

"Yeah, basically." He seemed to shake himself. "Come on, I'll give you a quick tour."

I lit up in excitement, grabbing his hand.

It was a fun tour - he showed me the kitchen, an uncountable number of bedrooms, the library - he even let me choose a book to take home! - the swimming pool, a room where the floor and walls were a huge trampoline, a room where there was no gravity and, eventually, we ended up in the wardrobe.

"I think you should wear this." I was holding up a heavy leather jacket.

"But I quite like this." He held out a navy jumper.

"But this would suit you better." I insisted.

"Well, how would you know?" He said irritably. "You barely know me."

"Well, you don't know who you are either." I shot back. "You said you were still...cooking."

He glared at me and I was sure that meant I had made a valid point.

"Why don't you try them each on and we'll see which one is best?" I tried to reason - that was what my mum made me do when she bought me new clothes I didn't like.

"Fine then." He said grumpily.

I had to admit, grudgingly, that the jumper did suit him. However, I still think the leather jacket looked cooler.

"You know what!" He said, throwing his hands up, after a few minuted of bickering. "I'll just wear them both together." He shrugged the jacket on over the jumper he was already wearing, looking down at himself and adjusting the hem a little bit. "Well, what do you think?" He said after a minute.

"Its good." I nodded. He looked a little bit weird, but it suited him. "Better than that waistcoat."

His face looked as if a shadow had crossed it then and I wondered what I had done wrong.

"Anyway, Merry. Must be off. Let's just drop you home." He walked out of the wardrobe doors without a backwards glance and, after looking around at the mess we had made, I hurried after him, not wanting to get lost in the vast expanse of the TARDIS. He didn't stop until he'd left the TARDIS and walked down the street to my house, walking a few steps in front of me the entire time.

"Its been a good evening." He admitted when I was standing the doorway of my house.

"Fantastic." I smiled at him, even as I still felt a bit confused about his sudden change in attitude.

"Fantastic." He repeated. "I like that. Well, see you." He said abruptly, turning away with a big grin.

"Wait!" I shouted after him. He didn't stop but he did slow down, turning around so he was walking backwards. Not sure what to say, I waved and grinned at him. "Goodbye Doctor!"

The last I saw of him was his grin. Or, at least, I thought that would be the last I saw of him. In fact, waking up the next morning, it all felt like a dream. I almost convinced myself it was too, until I saw my new book and the empty biscuit tin.

However, the events of Halloween night remained in a shroud of confusion for another two weeks. Because that's when I saw the Doctor again.

***?***

It was Saturday the 13th of November when I next saw the Doctor. I was home alone, with my Mum at work and my Dad taking my brother to football. It had taken me nearly a week to convince my Mum that I would be fine for the three hours that I would be alone and did not need to wake up ridiculously early just to watch Evan play football. So when I heard the knock on the door, I was annoyed, sure that it was one of Mum's friends that she'd sent round to look after me. I was eleven! I could take care of myself.

"Merry!"

I shrieked as I was grabbed in a hug and shaken like a rag doll. I would have continued screaming if I hadn't recognised the scent - fire and leather; a lightening storm and dust after rain. He still smelt the exact same, even after two weeks.

"You're still wearing the jacket!" I said gleefully as I dropped to the floor. "And the jumper." I said a bit more quietly.

"Well of course I am." He said as if offended. "They're brilliant outfit choices."

I laughed, stepping back into the house and gesturing for him to come in.

"I'm home alone, so its fine."

He grinned widely at me as he stepped past me into the hallway, not waiting for me to shut the door before he walked through the kitchen and into the living room. When I hurried to catch up with him, he was flipping through one of the magazines from the coffee table.

"What year is it?" He asked suddenly.

"Um, 2010...Why?"

"Oh, last time I checked I was in 2005." He said so matter-of-factually that all I could do was believe him. After all, I reasoned to myself, he had a blue box that led to a completely different dimension.

"Anyway!" He suddenly threw the magazine he had been flicking through to the side and it fluttered to the ground. "Want to come on an adventure?"

My immediate reaction was to say yes, but the lessons in school suddenly kicked in. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"But I hardly know you." I said suspiciously. He was still smiling.

"Well, glad to know you have some survival instincts." He chortled. "But you can trust me."

And for some reason, I did.

"Well, come on then!" He walked past me and into the kitchen, but I still had one protest.

"I'm in my pyjamas!"

"Really?" He turned around and looked at me. "Oh yeah. Well, it doesn't matter."

"Yes it does!" I cried. "I've got to get dressed. It won't take long." I promised.

"Oh, alright then. Girls and their clothes..." He muttered to himself as I ran up the stairs.

"What should I wear?" I shouted down to him.

"Whaddya mean?"

"Like, are we going through woods? Or to the beach? Are we going to just look around a museum or do something more active?" I was determined to think ahead, the memory of going in flipflops only for it to rain having happened a few too many times.

"Just... wear trainers."

I puzzled over his words, but quickly found a pair of black skinny jeans and an old blue t-shirt, with a black zip-up hoodie and a pair of ratty blue trainers. I brushed my blonde hair up into a ponytail and decided I was good for any weather.

"Oh, you didn't take that long." Was the first thing the Doctor said to me when I ran back downstairs. He sounded surprised.

"I'm only eleven - it's not like I put on make up or anything." I told him. I knew what he meant; waiting for Mum to get ready always felt like ages.

"Well, all the more time for adventuring!" He cried, walking fast through the kitchen.

"But I've got to leave a note!" I said, quickly finding a pen and a piece of paper.

"But I can get you back five minutes from now." The Doctor complained.

"Really? Are you sure?" I asked sceptically - it wouldn't be much of an adventure if it only lasted five minutes.

"Well..." He winced. "Maybe it is best to leave a note, just in case."

I nodded. Quickly, I wrote down that I had been invited around a friend from school's house and I would be back in time for tea and, after asking the Doctor if he had a phone number, scribbled it down at the bottom of the paper.

"Can we go now?" He whined slightly and I had a sudden thought that he acted more like an eleven year old than I did.

I nodded and within minutes we were out of the front door and walking briskly down the street, until we reached the same blue Police Box as before. I waited silently as the Doctor searched through his pockets until he came up with a key and followed him silently into the box.

"Welcome back to the TARDIS, Merry." He gestured grandly.

"Why do you call me Merry?" I asked suddenly, remembering him doing it last time we had met but unsure why he did.

"Doesn't anyone else call you Merry?" He asked, looking confused.

"No..." I shook my head slowly.

"Huh. Its a good nickname." He suddenly seemed to defend his choice in nicknames.

"I like it." I blushed slightly. "Nobody's ever given me a nickname before."

He seemed shocked.

"Never? They don't just call you Meredith do they?"

"Yeah, its just Meredith." I say, feeling slightly sad. I don't have any friends to shorten it and my Mum, the traditional sort, just calls me by my first name.

"Well, I think Merry is perfectly good."

"Yeah. Fantastic." I smile up at the Doctor, where he's stood by the centre bit of the room.

"Where to first, then?" His wide grin was infectious and I couldn't help but smile back at him.

"Well.."

It wasn't until what I was pretty sure was three months later, running down the long corridors of the RMS Titanic as they slowly filled with water that I started to regret my life decisions. Up until this point, it had been fun. We'd delivered letters around space and time to people who made the Doctor frown and others who made him smile. We'd taken two old friends of the Doctor's to see William Shakespeare, which was something I'd never even imagined. And we had joined what seemed like a race with twelve other men, all with the same eyes, to help a burning planet; although this one hadn't been mentioned since. We had gone to Space Florida, which had been amazing; we'd gone to museums and zoos and bazaars; we'd travelled to an American circus in the early 1970's (which had turned out pretty bad, I had to admit to myself); we'd saved a civilisation and escaped from at least three jail cells and now, finally, we'd arrived in a store cupboard on a low level of the Titanic, following a signal from some alien device I couldn't pronounce that the Doctor was determined to retrieve. Well, that he was determined I'd retrieve, whilst he held back the group of long-necked, feathered aliens that had suddenly appeared.

I was startled out of my thoughts as I crashed into somebody. On autopilot, I'd run round the corner at the end of the corridor and hadn't had any chance to think that someone else would be stupid enough to still be in these corridors, with the water still rising.

"What are you doing down here, little one?" The voice was masculine and kind. I looked up, rage starting to boil in my blood at the nickname; I wasn't little. I stopped before I could do more than open my mouth, however, as I had to look up far enough that I considered to myself that I really was little compared to this giant. And then I saw his face and any words I'd had flew from my brain.

"We need to get out of here." The man suddenly said, an urgent tone to his voice. His familiar eyes wanted to keep me silent but his words startled me out of my daze.

"I'm eleven! Not little!" I shouted, taking his sudden distraction to run past him as fast as I could. I could hear his feet pounding on the floor behind me, the splash of water as he ploughed through it. I ran even faster, turning corner after corner in the hopes that it would distract him. I almost couldn't place it, but I knew I had to get away from him. It was important.

In a way, it was even more important than finding the stupid alien artefact that was the reason I was even here. The Doctor could have fun distracting the giraffe-aliens a bit longer.

It wasn't until nearly a week later, long after I'd swam my way down to the sinking TARDIS with a strange, glowing chain in my mouth as the Titanic sunk around me; long after the Doctor had wrapped me in a blanket and made me hot chocolate in an attempt to warm me up. In fact, it wasn't until after escaping the court of Hammurabi and meeting Ali that I thought about it at all.

What had it been about the man's blue eyes that had seemed so familiar yet so, so scary?