The next day, Sam didn't have a job to go to. Hunt's had been destroyed. So much for his theory that the Doctor and the mannequins were a dream.
Speaking of dreams, what the hell had that been last night? My God, he barely encountered this bloke for five minutes, and then he had that utterly confusing dream about him. The mysterious Doctor (or whatever his name really was) and all his different faces. The strange meadow of rust colored grass. And Sam had imagined that he had not one, but two hearts when he was…yeah. That last bit was the weirdest of all.
Sam was not gay. Never had been, never would be. He never ever had fancied men, not a single one. He'd never even had a dream about being gay, until now. Besides, he had a lovely girlfriend-
Annie! Oh God. Sam snatched up his mobile and checked it. Annie had called him ten times, and left eight frantic voicemails. He immediately punched in her number and hit SEND. She picked on the first ring.
"Oh my God, Sam, you had me worried sick!" exclaimed Annie. "You completely missed out on our date last night, and then I saw on the news that your shop had blown up, and-and-oh, Sam!" Sam heard sobs on the other end of the line and knew it was serious. Annie was not one to get all emotional. "I was thinking that the worst had happened! Why didn't you call me?"
"I'm sorry, love, I meant to, honest I did," said Sam, feeling terrible. "But I'd just walked out of the building, and it exploded! After all that, I just forgot. There was so much confusion. I'm so sorry, Annie, please forgive me."
Annie was trying to control her breathing. "Oh, of course I forgive you. I was just so worried. I was scared you were...you were-!"
"I know, I know," said Sam. "But I'm not. I'm still here. I'm alright. Really. Not even a scratch on me. I was quite lucky I got out of there when I did."
"Yes. Thank God for that!"
"Listen, why don't you-" Sam was about to offer that Annie come over and they could go out to brunch somewhere, but was distracted by the sound of something fiddling with his cat flap. Thought I nailed that down, thought Sam.
Sam went over to his front door to inspect it, and found that he had indeed nailed down the flap, but that something had pushed the nails back out. "Hello? Sam?"
"Sorry, Annie, look, I'll call you later. Weird stuff goin' on," said Sam.
"Alright. Love you," she said and hung up.
Sam bent down and picked up one of the fallen nails. "What the hell?" he muttered.
Suddenly, the cat flap fluttered again. Sam leapt back in surprise. That is no cat, he thought.
Sam cautiously bent back down and pushed the flap with two fingers. Once, briefly. Then, again, completely.
Through the small square, Sam saw two blue eyes staring at him.
Sam popped up in surprise. He flung the front door open to reveal the mysterious Doctor standing there, mirroring his own expression of bewilderment. "What are you doing here?" interrogated the Doctor.
"I live here," said Sam.
"Well, what did you do that for?"
"Because I do. I'm only home because someone blew up my job," Sam added pointedly.
The Doctor pulled the weird pen-thing out of his inner jacket pocket. "Must've gotten the wrong signal," he muttered, studying it. He suddenly wrapped his knuckles lightly on Sam's forehead. "You're not plastic, are you? No," he said, answering his own question. "Bonehead. Bye, then."
"Oi! Bonehead?!" Sam grabbed the sleeve of the Doctor's jacket and yanked him inside. "I think you owe me an explanation or two, mate."
"Watch the leather!" complained the Doctor, but didn't object to being pulled inside Sam's flat. "Hmm. Nice place you got here."
"Er…" Well, now that the Doctor was inside, Sam didn't quite know what to say. "Do you…want a coffee or something?" he asked, feeling stupid.
The Doctor looked at him in derision and said, "Yeah…sure. Just milk, thanks."
Sam quickly went to the kitchen to pour the mugs. Okay, thought Sam. You're gonna ask why those dummies came to life last night. No, first, you're gonna ask who the hell he is and why he's stalking you. And why you had a weird dream about him last night-no! You're not bringing that up! God, no!
Meanwhile, in the living room, the Doctor was making himself comfortable. He spotted a magazine lying on the coffee table and flipped it open. "That won't last," he said, chuckling to himself as he scanned an article about some hot new celebrity couple. "He's gay and she's an alien."
He then picked up a paperbook and casually shuffled through its pages. "Hm, sad ending," he said, tossing it aside. He found Sam's driver's license and muttered to himself "Sam Tyler". Then, he spotted a mirror hanging on Sam's wall.
"Eh, could've been worse," he mused, getting closer to inspect his new form better. He didled his ear lobes and commented, "Look at the ears." The Doctor had regenerated over a month ago, but hadn't had much time for looking in mirrors and such. He'd been far too busy…well, keeping himself distracted.
Sam was still in the kitchen, so the Doctor picked up a deck of playing cards and attempted to shuffle them, but instead managed to scatter them all over the living room floor. "Maybe not," he sighed.
The Doctor was suddenly distracted by the sound of the cat flap rattling. "What's that then?" he called to Sam in the kitchen. "You got a cat?"
Sam was shaken from his stupor of thinking about the previous night's occurrings. "What? No," he replied.
With the coffee finally poured, Sam came into the living room, where the Doctor had plopped himself into an armchair and was messing around with the plastic arm, pretending that it was choking him. "Thought I threw that out," he said offhandedly, setting the mugs down on the coffee table. "Oi, what are all these cards doing all over the floor?" he said, bending over to pick them up.
"Anyway…look, mate, you never did tell me your name last night. Doctor what-was-it?" said Sam, but no reply came from the Doctor, just strange grunting noises. "Hello?-ah!"
The Doctor had managed to pry the arm from his throat. He threw the arm away, which simply continued to hang there in midair. Then, fingers outstretched, the arm turned around and attached itself to Sam's face.
The Doctor grabbed the arm by its…arm and attempted to detach it from Sam's face, managing to fall backward, breaking the coffee table, with Sam on top of him-
The golden-haired boy fell onto the floor, accidentally pulling his smaller dark-haired friend with him. "Whoops!" said Theta, and the two boys laughed at their own silliness…until the sound died away, and the two boys were just staring into each other eyes, crystal blue versus mystic lavender.
"Kos…" Theta said slowly.
Koschei tried to calm the rapid beats of his hearts, and quickly stood, turning away so that the other would not see him blush-
Oh, brother! thought Sam, his cheeks burning red behind the plastic hand. He quickly pulled himself up and immediately fell back onto the futon. The Doctor finally yanked the arm off of Sam's face, then, after meddling with the buttons for an instant, jabbed the palm with his strange pen device.
The arm gave a final twitch of its fingers and went stiff. "It's alright, I stopped it. See?" he said, tossing the arm to Sam. "Armless," he joked, flashing him another toothy smile.
The two men stood, Sam still a little shaken by the attack. The Doctor picked up his spilled mug from the floor where the wooden shards of Sam's destroyed coffee table lay scattered like the playing cards. "Well, the coffee was lovely," he said, handing the mug to Sam. "But now I really must be off. Have a nice day."
And with that, the Doctor strode out the door.
Sam stood there in bewilderment, his living room all but destroyed. Then he remembered why he had invited the strange man in-answers. "Oi! Wait a second!"
Sam chased after the leather clad man, who was now descending the stairs outside. "Hold on a minute, you can't just go swanning off!"
"Yes I can. Here I am; this is me, swanning off. See ya!" The Doctor called cheekily over his shoulder.
"That arm was bloody moving!" exclaimed Sam. "It tried to kill me!"
"Ten out of ten for observation," muttered the Doctor sarcastically.
"But…but…you can't just walk away," argued Sam. "You've got to tell me what's going on."
"No, I don't."
The Doctor continued to walk away from the estates, but Sam was on hot on his heels. "Alright then," Sam threatened. "I'll go to the police. I'll tell everyone. You said if I did that, I'd get people killed. So, your choice, my dear Doctor; tell me, or I'll-"
The Doctor whirled around. "What did you just say?"
"Er…I said 'tell me'?" said Sam confusedly.
"No, before that," said the Doctor.
"'Your choice'?"
"No, after that." The Doctor eyed Sam suspiciously. "You called me something."
Sam was puzzled. "Yeah. I called you 'Doctor'."
The Doctor stared into Sam's green eyes intensely, as if searching for something. Sam felt a bit awkward at the scrutiny. Finally, the Doctor shut his eyes and shook his head. "Nah. Forget it. Just thought you…never mind," he said, pacing away again.
Sam quickly followed suit. "Look, mate…who are you?"
"You just said it. The Doctor," he said.
"Yeah, but…Doctor who?" persisted Sam. "You got a surname, don't you?"
Lungbarrow.
"No," said the Doctor. "Not anymore."
"So…you're just…the Doctor?" said Sam incredulously.
"Hello!" said the Doctor, waving.
"Is that supposed to sound impressive?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Sort of."
"Are you the police?" asked Sam.
"No, I was just passing through. I'm a long way from home," the Doctor added nonchalantly.
A sudden image appeared up in Sam's mind. A wondrous landscape of the red-orange grass from Sam's dream, the yellow-orange sky the backdrop for forests of silver trees and high mountains of violet and brown and red and gold. All amber hued and lit up by the sun, one of two, coming up over the horizon, setting the glorious red and orange and gold scene ablaze…
Sam shook his head slightly. What were all these strange notions? Ever since he'd met this eccentric Doctor, his head was filled with visions and feelings and memories that weren't his. His head was pounding with it all. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. "But how come those plastic things keep coming after me?
"Oh, suddenly the entire world revolves around you!" taunted the Doctor. "You were just an accident. You got in the way, that's all."
"It tried to kill me."
"It was after me, not you. Last night, in the shop, I was there, you blundered in, almost ruined the whole thing. This morning, I was tracking it down, it was tracking me down. The only reason it fixed on you is 'cause you've met me."
"So what you're saying is that the entire world revolves around you."
"Sort of, yeah," the Doctor shot back.
Sam snorted. "You're full of it."
"Sort of, yeah," the Doctor repeated, grinning wiley.
Sam allowed himself a laugh. "But, all this plastic stuff," he said. "Who else knows about it?"
"No one," replied the Doctor.
"What, you're on your own?"
"Well, who else is there? I mean, you lot, all you do is eat chips, go to bed, and watch telly, while all the time, underneath you, there's a war going on."
"Okay…," said Sam slowly. "Start from the beginning. I mean, if we're going to go with the living plastic…and I don't even believe that…but if we do, how did you kill it?"
The Doctor, coming to terms with the fact that he just wasn't going shake Sam, slowed down a more leisurely pace. He took a breath and began to explain. "The thing controlling it projects life into the arm. I cut off the signal. Dead."
"So it's radio control?" asked Sam.
"Thought control," corrected the Doctor. He noticed the look on Sam's face. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah." For some reason, Sam was surprisingly unfazed by any of this. It must have just been the initial shock fading away. "So, who's controlling it, then?"
"Long story," said the Doctor shortly.
"But what's it all for? I mean, shop window dummies, what's that about?" Sam lowered his voice and whispered dramatically, "Is someone trying to take over Britain's shops?"
The Doctor and Sam actually burst into laughter at this. "No," chuckled the Doctor. "It's not a price war."
"Yeah?" said Sam, still chortling a bit himself. "Then what are they doing here?"
"They want to overthrow the human race and destroy you," said the Doctor, not laughing anymore.
Sam stopped laughing too and looked at the Doctor in slight disbelief. "Do you believe me?" asked the Doctor, gauging his reaction.
"No," said Sam honestly.
"But you're still listening," the Doctor pointed out.
"Yeah…but really, though, Doctor…tell me. Who are you?" said Sam, all seriousness now.
The Doctor stopped short. He slowly turned around. There was a glimmer of wonder in his icy blue eyes.
"Do you know how they say-about the Earth revolving?" The Doctor took a few steps toward Sam. "It's like when you were a kid. The first time they tell you the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it because everything looks like it's standing still."
Sam stared at the strange, mystical man with a feeling of bewilderment and anticipation. The Doctor looked at him, the cloudy blue eyes piercing into his own green ones. "I can feel it," whispered the Doctor. "The turn of the Earth…The ground beneath our feet is spinning at a thousand miles an hour, the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at sixty seven thousand miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go…"
Sam felt the Doctor suddenly drop his hand. He hadn't even realized he had been holding it.
"Er…sorry," said the Doctor, looking awkward.
Theta and Koschei had snuck out after supper to watch the second sun set. It was one of their favorite things. The way the sun cast beams of light that shone through the silver leaves of the trees and set the violet-brown mountains on fire. The sky becoming darker red than the crimson grass underneath them.
The two boys sat on the ground, watching the great golden sphere sink lower and lower in the sky. The evening breeze rustled their hair.
Koschei closed his eyes and felt the gentle wind on his face, his cheeks, his eyelids. He could faintly smell the sweet essence of the baby blue flowers that grew wild out here in the meadow.
The young boy was completely immersed in the moment, until he felt something brush his hand gently.
Koschei's violet eyes opened suddenly and he looked down to see that Theta's hand had moved on top of his.
Theta and Koschei stared at the joined hands for a moment, before Theta slowly moved his away. "Er…sorry," he said, looking away bashfully.
"Uh…it's alright," said Sam.
The breeze was blowing out here too, like in the vision (he was going mad). It was actually quite a beautiful day. The sun was shining, a bird was chirping in a large oak tree standing next to a blue telephone box. Children were laughing and shrieking in a playground nearby.
The Doctor cleared his throat. "Yeah, well…that's who I am. Now, forget me, Sam Tyler," he said firmly.
He took the dummy's arm from Sam and waved it at him sardonically. "Go home."
The Doctor turned and walked away.
Sam watched the mysterious man go. Then, he too slowly turned around and started back for his apartment. But he had only walked about twenty paces, when a noise stopped him.
It was a strange, mechanical wheezing, unlike anything Sam had ever heard before. He didn't know what it was, but it just seemed so familiar…
Sam swiftly turned around and raced back to the place where he and the Doctor had parted. He looked around frantically, but saw neither hide nor hair of the mysterious man.
He was gone.
Sam stared a sidewalk where a few cars were parked. Wait…wasn't there a telephone booth standing there just a second ago?