Hey guys! Time for chapter 2! This one is a little shorter than the previous chapter. This is where things really start to kick off. I think.
EDIT: I added more content after rewatching some of season 1. Hopefully, it'll flow better.
I don't own Doctor Who.
Chapter 2: The New One
It happened again. Everyone in the room had stopped moving, frozen in action. Everyone but him, of course. The Doctor was getting more and more frustrated with each passing second. Which wasn't exactly correct, since time seemed to have stopped. Again, he thought. And then he stiffened. Something was different this time. He could feel it now. There was a presence right here in this room. It was really quite strong, actually. And unless he was hallucinating, he was staring at it right now.
The Doctor eyed the ripple in the air in front of him. It just stayed there for a moment, before raising its...arm(?), and seemed to point to something. He looked in the direction to where it was pointing and saw Cassandra. Before he could wonder even more, the ripple-thing dashed away down a corridor. Instinctively, he ran after whatever it was, to wherever it apparently wanted him to go to. After a few minutes of running, he saw that it had stopped outside a door with a panel next to it. The ripple pointed to the panel, then to the door. Puzzled, he took out his sonic, opened the panel, and began to scan.
After he got the door open, he went in. Giant propellers greeted him. But they were still as well. A lever and another panel caught his eye...along with another metal spider on the floor. He turned to the ripple.
"What now?"
He might as well talk to it. In response, it pointed to the panel, then to the spider, and finally to the other end of the room, where he saw a switch. And then it all dawned on him: the injured Steward, Cassandra being brought to his attention, the metal spiders, the panels...it made perfect sense. Grinning widely at the ripple-thing, he knew exactly what to do. With a wave (or what counted as one) , it disappeared. Taking advantage of the halt in time, the Doctor hurried across the room, ducking and moving around the propeller blades, until he reached the switch. Time to save the day, he thought.
The Doctor frowned, staring at the child that materialized in front of him inside the TARDIS. How in the name of Gallifrey had he ended up with a child in his care? A child, of all things! He thought back to the conversation he had with the Face of Boe after saving everyone on Platform One...
I see you're still wondering why you were brought here.
"Why? Did you have anything to do with it?"
This universe is wrong. So wrong. Things are not as they should be. Do you not notice?
"Honestly...no, I don't. But I suspect you already know everything."
Perhaps I do, perhaps I do not.
"Oh, with all due respect, Boe, don't give me that rubbish. What is it that you know?"
Time is wrong, Doctor. Something happened that was not meant to happen.
"And I suppose you want me to sort it out, restore time? Sorry, not interested. I don't meddle. If it happened, then it was meant to happen. And I can't be bothered with changing something that doesn't affect me."
And as he had turned to leave, the Face of Boe said something that made him stop dead in his tracks.
Ah, but it does affect you. It affects you greatly, from now until the future. Your lives, to be precise.
"Alright. I'm listening. Suppose I agree. What do you want me to do?"
My time here grows short. I only ask you to take care of her. She is the most precious in existence. Nurture her. Help her grow. And when the time comes when you are in grave danger, she will come to your aid.
The Face of Boe had teleported out of the room right after that. The Doctor had stood there, puzzled at the meaning of the words. Shaking his head, he had returned to the TARDIS...which now had a new occupant.
That was how he now found himself staring at the girl dressed in white. And she stared back up at him with wide eyes. Was she the one that The Face of Boe had been referring to? The most precious in existence? This mere child? The Doctor almost laughed out loud at the sheer ludicrousness of it all. It wasn't like he hated children. He quite enjoyed their company from time to time, thank you very much! Unfortunately, they tended to wander, and wandering often led to trouble. He didn't really blame them, poor young things that they were. It was natural for them to be curious. He sighed. He would have to drop the child off at the first suitable planet he came across.
But the second that thought crossed his mind, a shower of sparks shot out from under the console, and the TARDIS gave him an angry-sounding hum. It was almost as if she didn't want the girl to leave. As if to prove a point, sparks erupted again, along with a rather painful jolt of static to his right foot. This was definitely strange. The TARDIS rarely took a liking to anyone this soon, and yet, here she was, adamant that the child should stay. He took a deep breath, hoping he would not regret this. Eyeing the girl, who was now playing with the hem of her dress, he knelt down so that he was on her level.
"Alright. You can stay here. I don't know why, but since both the TARDIS and your old guardian seem to think you're important in some way, I really have little say in the matter. Just don't get in the way," he said finally.
He expected the girl to give him a hug, as all children seemed to like doing that. But instead, she grinned widely and curtsied. At least she's polite, he thought. Then she ran up the spiral staircase and into the upper depths of the TARDIS, no doubt being guided by her. The Doctor heaved another sigh (really, he's been doing a lot of sighing today), hoping again he would not regret letting the girl stay. In any case, he should at least give the girl a room to sleep in. He stood up, straightening his legs. And then, he promptly stumbled a little. His head felt oddly fuzzy. He stumbled again, and leaned on the console for support, before he succumbed to darkness and the dreams of a person whose face he couldn't see...
He was sitting on a playground swing in broad daylight. The playground in question was strangely empty, giving it a forlorn look. He was sure he hadn't seen it before, but somehow, it felt familiar. The surroundings were something else entirely, though. The buildings looked old and decrepit. The asphalt was cracked. The entire area as far as he could see was devoid of any plant-life. And though he'd had his own encounters with abandoned towns, the Doctor got the feeling that this wasn't supposed to be. Everything just looked, well, wrong.
It's bad, isn't it?
The Doctor nearly had a heart attack, and for a moment, he didn't realize that he didn't actually hear the voice. He looked around rapidly, only to find no one there. And he was quite sure he hadn't imagined it either, even though he knew he had heard it inside his head, but that was besides the point...
You won't be able to find me, you know. So stop looking.
"Where are you then? If you're not here, then how are you speaking to me?" he asked warily.
The voice laughed, and despite everything, there was a strange pleasantness to the sound. For a moment, the Doctor felt at ease. He could almost imagine the voice coming from a human girl.
I'm everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But I used to be here.
"Well, I can understand why you're not here anymore," said the Doctor with a small chuckle.
No. I used to be here. But then I went away. I can't come back now.
The Doctor's curiosity was finally piqued.
"So, what are you, exactly? Some sort of phantom?" he asked.
The voice laughed again.
I guess you can say that. I used to be real. I had a face. I had a name.
"What was your name? Do you remember?"
He was slightly surprised he even bothered asking. But this ghost, or phantom, or whatever it was, spoke with such a quiet intensity that reminded him of himself somehow.
It doesn't matter what I was called. When I went away, all of me went away. No one remembers. Everyone I had ever known or ever will know...I don't exist to them. I'm not real anymore, yet I'm still here.
He was puzzled at first. He thought it was a phantom, but the way it described its death made it sound like it had died by...His eyes grew wide and his blood started to chill.
Before he could say what he hoped to not be the case, the voice spoke again.
I have to go now. Thank you for listening...Doctor.
The Doctor woke up with a start, and found himself laying on the floor of the TARDIS. Muttering a few choice words in Gallifreyan, he shakily got to his feet. The dream he had was fading from his mind as he tried to make sense of it. But all he could remember was the abandoned and lifeless street, the empty playground, and how wrong it had felt to him. Cursing again at his mind's apparent lack of dream recovery, he decided to worry about it later. He had more important things to take care of first, like tracking down the girl before she got lost in the depths of the TARDIS. And giving her a room, he thought, making his way up the stairs.
He went down one corridor, past several doors. If he had not been so preoccupied, he would have noticed the glow that was coming from one of the doors. And had the TARDIS decided not to switch things up again, he would have passed by that corridor again in a reasonable amount of time. But the Doctor did not go back there, at least not that night, anyway. So he didn't know that the golden light continued to shine from underneath that door, and would continue to do so for another few hours.
To be continued...
That wraps it up for this chapter. Yes, I know the whole time-stopping/ripple thing seems a bit cheesy. And I know I just ended this chapter a bit abruptly. But that was where my brain took me, so I'm gonna go with it. I really hope the additions I made fleshed out this chapter a little. Till next time!
