AN:
Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognize, BBC does.
I put a hand to my mouth, suddenly recalling everything that I had just accidentally left behind. My mother, my dog, my friends, my high school... I was now completely cut off from my life. The life that I had lead for 15 years. The expression you never really appreciate anything until you lose it revealed its meaning to me in full, cold clarity.
I felt the Doctor's hand on my shoulder, obviously trying to reassure me, but I didn't want reassurance. I just wanted to go home. So, I roughly shrugged the Doctor's hand off my shoulder and ran for the hallway to the rest of the TARDIS without looking back with tears in my eyes.
I ran and ran and ran. I think I was in a state of shock, so I didn't really realize how tired I was getting until the TARDIS thankfully put a dead end in front of me so I'd stop. By then, I was panting and starting to cry. I couldn't believe it... my family, my friends, my school, my planet, my entire universe was gone. Lost to me forever and I was stuck in this new, strange universe, where the Last of the Time Lords travels in time and space in a little blue box and aliens attack London practically every Christmas. I slid down to the floor with my back to the wall, sobbing. This can't be real, I though desperately. This has got to be some elaborate prank, or dream, or even a hallucination. I don't know which option I preferred. It was either I was actually, literally in the freaking bigger-on-the-inside TARDIS, with no way back to my universe, or I was going to wake up at one point in a straight jacket. That only made me sob harder.
I don't know how much time went by while I sat on the floor (you can never really tell in the TARDIS) but I know that, some time later, the TARDIS must've tried to comfort me, because a door to a nearby room opened with a squeak and I looked up, my eyes rimmed red from crying. There was a soft light coming from the room and for some reason I felt pulled toward it. So, I stood on shaky legs and shuffled to the doorway. What I saw inside the room made me instantly want to give the TARDIS a hug, if I could.
The room the TARDIS had made was exactly like my room in my universe. Same layout, same bedspread, same view from the window, heck, she had even copied all of my favourite books. I took a trembling step forward and collapsed on my bed, jumping up and down slightly to test it to see if it felt the same. It did. I lay back and stared at the popcorn ceiling, my tears coming to a stop. I took a deep breath and smelled the air in my room, taking in the scent of home. If I couldn't just make out the grungy coral hallway outside the door, I could believe that I was home again. Upon having this thought, the hallway changed before my eyes in a shimmer of yellow light and the hallway outside my bedroom appeared. Same beige paint, same extra bookshelf (I had to put a bookshelf outside my room in the hallway because there was no more space in my room) ... I realized that while I was sitting on the floor sobbing earlier, the TARDIS must've been scanning my thoughts (I'd been thinking of my house, what else?) and she'd made me a perfect duplicate of my room. Thank you, I thought, wondering if she'd hear me. A happy hum of the walls was my answer. Glad to help, she said.
I got up and walked around my room, not that there was much space to walk around anyway. My room was ... had been kind of small. Finally, done with the tour, I sat on my bed again, thinking hard. I knew that travel between parallel worlds is impossible, but it was only impossible because the Time Lords were gone. However, I knew that later in the show, the Doctor, in his 11th incarnation (well, 12th if you count the War Doctor) will discover that he didn't blow up Gallifrey and that his home planet is locked away in a pocket universe. I had to hope that one day, the Doctor would find the Time Lords again and they could open up the paths between parallel worlds again. Hell, they might even take me back in time to a bit after I disappeared from my universe. I then wondered if my mom had come home yet, if she'd searched the house for me yet, if she'd called the police yet. She'd be devastated and probably convinced that I was kidnapped or something. Well, I might as well be. Accidentally kidnapped by the Doctor and the TARDIS. I pushed aside those dark thoughts and stood up, determined. I was going to find the Doctor and I was going to get some answers.
I stepped out of my room to see a perfect replica of the hallway outside my room at home. I walked down it with quick steps, rapidly nearing the end of it. I turned a corner and the coral hallway started again. I followed this hallway through many twists and turns back to the console room, where the Doctor seemed to be brooding.
I guess he didn't hear me coming, because when I cleared my throat, he jumped a foot in the air and turned to look at me. "Oh, sorry," he said with a sheepish grin. "Didn't hear you coming."
I nodded and said, "It's okay."
The Doctor seemed to size me up, then he asked, "Are you alright?" I have him an incredulous look and he hastened to add, "Sorry, of course you're not alright, you're the king of not-alright right now... sorry, you're the queen of-"
"Doctor!" I exclaimed loudly. I could tell that he was about to go off on a tangent, like he usually does. "I have some questions." The Doctor looked curious when I said that and slightly wary. Before he could reply, I continued. "First off, why were you in my universe in the first place? Secondly, why did the TARDIS leave my universe? And thirdly, what the hell are we going to do now?"
The Doctor looked slightly overwhelmed by my rush of one-after-the-other questions, but he recovered and answered, "Well, I was tracking an anomaly- you do know what an anomaly is, do you?" I nodded and he continued. "Okay, well the TARDIS had picked up on its coordinates and we travelled to those coordinates, but the ride was so bumpy, I mean, bumpier than normal, and when we finally arrived, I was on your street. The sonic," and here he took out the sonic screwdriver and tossed it into the air before catching it again, "picked up the signal and I just followed it to your door. Now," and here his face went all serious. "I need to know something. Was there anything strange, anything weird in your house? Anything you saw, you touched ...?"
"Joyce," I provided. "Joyce Summers."
The Doctor paused and said, "Nice name, Joyce Summers. Anyway, was there anything strange going on in your house?"
I hesitated and thought about it before coming to a conclusion. "Nope. Nothing. But I think I know who the anomaly is."
Oh, he was interested by that. "Who is?" he asked eagerly.
"Me," I replied.
