"At The Intersection Memory Lane and Heartbreak Avenue"
"Got a plan?" Maya shouted, huffing as they ran across the dirt floor, keeping a steady pace.
"Run faster!" the Doctor shouted at his latest companion Maya, hoping she heard him over the roar of the Tyrannosaurs Rex.
"I like that plan!" And they executed it. Lucky for them, they were both in pretty good shape. The Doctor has had over a millennia's worth of running; Maya had worked for years in the water mines on Pathos. One had to be in good shape to survive there. The other option was death.
The Tardis was in sight, not far ahead. The dinosaur was coming closer; it was much faster and gaining on them. When they were close enough, the Doctor snapped his fingers, revealing the Tardis control room. Maya beat the Doctor there, but only by a fraction of a second. They ran through the doorway and quickly closed it behind them. Maya's fingers nearly fumbled with the locks, but the door was secure. They leaned their backs against the door and slid down to the floor, breathing heavily, but somehow managed to let out huge laughs.
The Doctor adjusted, then straightened his bowtie, which had misaligned when they were running. Unfortunately, it hadn't fallen off.
Too out of breath to use her voice, Maya contacted the Doctor's mind via her psychic talent. Hey, is a wooden door going to hold?
He replied the same way.
Oh, relax. The Doctor waved his hand in the way people do when they try to physically wave an idea away. Caesar's entire hoard of roman soldiers tried and failed to get through there.
BOOM! The Tardis shook, everything rattled. Did a bomb go off? Nope. The T-rex was banging at the sides like a wrecking ball.
"Lucky for you Caesar didn't have a dinosaur," Maya managed to say out loud. They avoided something falling from the ceiling and made a break for the console. Watching the Doctor frantically work made, Maya feel helpless. "Anything I can do to speed this along?"
"Find the pinkish red button that says 'Don't Push' and push it," The Doctor said distractedly as he did whatever it is he does when at the console.
"Pushing a button that says 'don't push?'" Maya muttered to herself. Fervently she searched and found the button, but before she did anything, she asked, "Are you sure about the whole button thing?"
The dinosaur gave the Tardis another good whack. The whole thing toppled from side to side. They held onto the railings and checked to make sure debris didn't fall on them. Finally the Doctor shouted, "Just press it!"
Press!
The Tardis took off like a bat out of hell, with a speed that rivaled . . . actually there was no rival. Forget Warp Ten. Nothing was as fast as the Tardis was at this moment. It caused the whole thing to shake uncontrollably and make strange bleeps, sweeps and creeps. The Doctor started crawling over to her, the force was to much to allow him to stand. There was a very loud, piercing sound that was causing him to shout, "Which button did you press?"
"The one you told me too!" Maya shouted back; she was holding onto the railing for fear of hitting her head on something. She pointed to it so the Doctor could see which one it was.
He looked at it and his eyes widened. Pulling himself up, the Doctor reached for the button and pressed it. The weird noise ceased, debris stopped falling; the Tardis stopped shaking enough for them to stand up effortlessly.
He turned and looked at her with stern eyes. In a low, angry voice he said, "That button specifically says, 'Don't Push'!" He emphasized the 'Don't Push' part.
"Hey!" Maya jumped up. "You said 'Find the pinkish red button that says 'Don't Push' and push it!'" Maya shouted in a fairly good impression of the Doctor's voice.
"Yeah, pinkish red! Not reddish pink!" He went around to the other side of the console; she heard him press a button. Presumably a pinkish red one that was labeled 'Don't Push'.
Flustered by what he said and not wanting to fight, Maya raised her hands in surrender and walked down the corridor. "I'm going to change." she said in a voice raised, not in anger, but in a want to be heard in a loud, echo-y room.
"What's wrong with what you have on?" The Doctor asked in genuine curiosity. It seems that he will never understand the mysterious creature known as a woman.
Everything Maya was wearing came from the Tardis wardrobe that she had found and thrown together. Her feet were covered by well-worn leather suede military boots; they almost looked of German origin, circa WWI.
A faded, pale blue, loose fitting, scoop neck, cotton tank top was tucked into her high-waisted medium brown shorts that stopped just above her mid-thigh. She also had her favorite black leather cord necklace with a green teething pendant hanging from it and two identical brown faux leather bracelets with small silver charms on her wrists. Over her entire outfit, Maya wore a light black hooded jacket; the outside was made of some kind of vinyl, the inside was something soft, maybe cotton.
"Nothing," she finally answered. "I just like not wearing clothes so much that they can stand by themselves and walk away." Then she realized something and asked, "Um, where'd we land?"
That's right the Tardis had stopped moving. Where and when, were they exactly? The Doctor pulled a keyboard out of nowhere and started typing; he got increasingly frustrated as kept going. "Oh, come on old girl, you can get the readings."
Still nothing. "Ugh! You know, you are a-" he kicked the side of the Tardis console. Only that backfired and caused him pain in his foot. He grabbed it and started comically jumping up and down. Maya tried not laugh as she walked toward him and tried to help.
Then the Tardis made a ping sound.
They both looked up, the Doctor even stopped jumping.
"Ah, never doubted you, old girl." He said, beaming with pride and hit the Tardis as if giving it a pat on the back.
He looked at the console the way he looks at his screwdriver when he's 'taking his readings'. Whether he was actually reading something or not was a whole other story.
"What?" she finally said after getting bored of standing and doing nothing. "Where are we?"
The Doctor walked over to the Tardis door and opened it; Maya wasn't far behind. They were greeted by a bright warm sun and loads of people walking past them. With a smile, he answered, "Earth. Northern Hemisphere. Europe. United Kingdom. England. London. Baker Street. Oh look, the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Ooh, the new paint job is frightening. Good thing you didn't change," he licked his finger and held it about half a meter from his face for a good few second, then licked it again. "Slightly cloudy, with light rain at three minutes past one in the afternoon and it will stay a nice toasty 30 degrees until tea time."
That made Maya's head turn. "30?"
"Right, stupid Doctor" he meandered over to her, explaining "they use Celsius here. You used the Bromon System on Pathos. Not too different to Fahrenheit actually, so conversion should be easy.l Let's see, divide, add, multiply – 88 degrees to you."
"Mm, comfortable," Maya nodded as she walked a little closer towards the walking people. Without turning, she asked, "What time is it?"
Flipping his wrist to check the time on his watch, he answered, "Somewhere between," he shook his head left to right, "ooh, 2008 and maybe 2015."
"How specific," Maya sarcastically replied, but to herself. She turned around. "Don't get me wrong, I'm sure this place is great, but, any particular reason we're here?"
"Not a clue," the Doctor made his way down the street; Maya following like a duckling after its mother in fear of getting lost. "The Tardis brought us here, not me."
"So, why are we still here? Is the Tardis rebooting?"
"Nope, she brought us here for a reason. Unless of course she's being sadistic, in which case, I don't want to be near her right now." The Doctor picked up a disarrayed newspaper from the ground and searched for something.
"What kind of place is this?" Maya's curiosity of this new place was growing. She leaned up against a wall waiting for the Doctor to stop doing eight things at once. "Is it completely boring or is it like a bug zapper that draws you in because it looks so harmless and then BAM! you're fried!"
Still searching the paper for whatever it was he was looking for, the Doctor answered in a distracted voice. "You'd think this place would be an absolute snooze fest, but somehow trouble always seems to find- hang on."
He looked at her. "Did you just compare London to a bug zapper?"
"Yeah," Maya said hesitantly.
"Fairly accurate," he went back to searching through the paper. After a minute there was a loud "AHA!"
That so loud, it made Maya jump. "What the hell's the matter with you?" she asked frantically. She composed herself by taking in a breath. Then, calmly asked, "What was with the 'aha?'"
"Found it!" he held out the paper for her to see. Maya scrunched her eyebrows. That's why he scared the living daylights out of her? She took the paper and read what he was pointing at; the date, '18th April, 2010.'
"Well, you were right about the year range," Maya commented, not really knowing anything else to say. "Any particular reason the date is so important?"
"You wanted to know the date," the Doctor shrugged, then he quickly took the paper back. "April 18th 2010?"
"Yeah?" Maya asked confusingly. "Does something important happen today?"
The Doctor didn't say anything, but his mind wandered into the past. Maya looked at him quizzically. Still not in complete control of her powers, they seemed to sense her need for answers and acted on their own accord. Her psychic abilities tapped into the Doctor's thoughts. She couldn't read them word for word, but got a summary of what he was thinking and it gave her brilliant and completely mad idea.
Maya pulled the paper out of his hands and dragged him back to the Tardis.
"What the hell are you doing?" the Doctor asked in genuine confusion. He wasn't used to being out of control.
"How do you feel about making a few house calls?" Maya said mischievously.
"House calls?" Maya let go of his elbow and walked deeper into the Tardis's control room. "What exactly do you have in mind?"
"This is long overdue," she said as she stepped up to the console and started typing in the coordinates section.
"Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah! Woah!" The Doctor ran up to console and stood in between her and the controls. "Only licensed drivers are allowed to touch the Tardis's controls."
Maya looked up at him. "You failed that test."
Ignoring that last remark, the Doctor eased his stance. "What are you trying to do, exactly?"
"Would you mind?" Maya indicated to a button she wanted him to press.
"Hmm? Sure." Absent-mindedly he pressed the button, then he realized what he'd done. "Hey!"
"This is something I think you need see Doctor. Unbelievably, you need reminding of all the good you do. Think of it as a Comeback Tour."
The Doctor looked at her as if he were trying to read her mind, and, as if the sun were coming up in his mind, his eyes widened in realization. Maya, who was more or less, monitoring his thought process, smiled impishly and slowly nodded, confirming his suspicions.
"Absolutely not!" He held out his arms the way people do when they want to try and block you.
"Too late," Maya reached around his body and flipped a switch and off the Tardis went flying.
The Doctor grabbed a lever and tried to stop what she'd done. Too late, they'd already landed. She was only taking them about 10 km, or 6 mi. Tardis didn't even break a sweat. He threw himself at the controls. "You are in so much trouble. When I reverse these directions you, young lady, are grounded. Where'd you go?"
The Doctor looked up and saw that Maya was not standing there anymore. She wasn't anywhere in the Tardis control room and the door that led to the outside world was open.
"Maya!" he shouted, running after her.
"Will you just trust me?" her voice asked. The Doctor stepped through the doorway and saw picturesque suburban roads and homes. By the looks of this place, Maya hadn't traveled in time, just space. They were just outside London, in Chiswick.
"We're going to walk the next couple of streets."
"How'd you know which controls would take you where you wanted to go?" Very few people can actually pilot the Tardis successfully.
Maya was falsely taken aback. "Doctor, you insult me. I am psychic after all. What good would these powers be if I couldn't pick your brain every once and awhile?" She turned and began walking down the road. "You coming?"
This is an interesting turn of events.
Maya turned back to face him. "Come on, Doctor. When was the last time someone did something like this for you?"
"Never, because it's a terrible idea!" he shouted
"How about this; if I'm right, I'll buy you a milkshake."
The Doctor walked up to her so that they weren't too far apart. "Maya, I can't. Whether you meant to or not, your powers picked up a connection to this date. But you only got part of the story. If you knew the whole thing, you would understand why."
"You said yourself that the Tardis brought us here, not you. Do you honestly think it was for no reason?"
"She didn't bring us here for this, she's too clever for that."
"What's the whole story then?" Maya asked. After moments of silence, she said, "I'm a big girl. I can take it."
"It's not a matter of whether or not you can take, its that-" the Doctor was cut off by Maya grabbing his hands and placing them on her head. He got the message and started transmitting the real reason he wouldn't go.
Maya received flashes and images of a woman, a friend. Words began to come to her. Memory. Danger. Death. Meta-Crisis. Noble. Maya saw someone else, the Doctor, but it wasn't the Doctor. There was another Doctor? A different Doctor, but the same. Maya could hear his voice. 'If she remembers me, she will die.'
The connection broke, his hands fell from her head and Maya and the Doctor looked at each other as they inhaled deeply. Somehow that process had taken all the air out of both them.
"I'm sorry," The Doctor finally said. "But now you know," he said somberly.
"So," he said cheerfully, "where to next? Hmm, I have did mention the Great Towers of the Singing Chibis. You might want to think about getting a frequent fliers card; you're racking up some distance here." He was just about to snap his fingers before turning around and seeing Maya walk down the road in the opposite direction.
"Hello?" he called out to her. Not getting an answer, he stalked after her. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Where do you think?" Maya called back.
Unruly child, he thought to himself to as he walked after her.
"I'm not deaf," she said without breaking stride.
"You honestly believe that this is a good idea?" The Doctor asked in an almost deadpan monotone as Maya knocked on the door to a quaint suburban home. "You know what will happen, it won't be pretty and you're going to do it anyway."
"Pretty much." Maya turned and stepped behind him. With the most innocent look on her face, she said, "It's what the Tardis wants."
"What are you doing now?" Asking why he had to be the one to do the talking.
"You have more experience at this than I do," she said just as the door was opened by an older gentleman.
"Can I help you?" Wilfred Mott asked.
AN- Hey guys, thanks for everything! Now you got an idea where I'm going? Well you DON'T! MWAH MWAH MWAH =] just kidding. I hope your having as much fun with Maya as I am! ^.^ Well, I'm off to write the next chapter, Just Like Old Times. Hard to keep up with my schedule, but I'll try for you. Yes, you speciffically. As per usual, I shall beg you for reviews. Until next time my minion army.
PS- For everyone who uses the system, it's 86 degrees Fahrenheit actually. I just changed it for the story. ;)