Another chapter! This one's a little short, sorry about that, but I wanted to keep it coming :)
I still don't own Doctor Who... or Amy, or Rory, or the TARDIS... or Matt Smith... *sniff*
Please read, enjoy, and review!
My first few hours of time travel went by in a blur of color and sound. The Doctor wanted me to get a taste for what the TARDIS could do, apparently, since the stops we made included:
- The fall of Rome (that one was an accident; in his initial excitement of having someone new traveling with him he had pushed an extra button too many. We left in exactly 17 seconds.)
- A distant ice moon, inhabited by small, fluffy ice bunnies. With teeth. Time spent here: five minutes plus the extra three for Amy's trip to the infirmary for a band aid.)
- The view of the Great Wall of China as it was being built (we watched this for nearly twenty minutes.)
- The edge of a comet that was racing past a ringed planet (I nearly passed out when I peeked out of the TARDIS doorway at this fantastic sight.)
After a couple of hours of this, and of Amy and Rory recounting a few of their own not-so-glamorous adventures, I was beginning to be completely overwhelmed when the Doctor parked us in the middle of a vast meadow complete with poppies, giant mushrooms, and butterflies. Rainbow butterflies. Yeah.
Taking a careful step outside, I slowly sank down into the soft grass beside the TARDIS, breathing deeply and simply gazing up into the sky. The air was full of light, but I couldn't seem to find a sun anywhere. Confused, I turned to the Doctor who had just plopped himself down beside me, and he seemed to read my thoughts:
"This planet hardly ever faces its sun," he murmured, "The air is full of microscopic organisms, way way up, that glow to create all this light."
My mouth continued to hang open slightly for a moment before I closed it, embarrassed. Yet taking a sideways glance at the Doctor and his two companions, I recognized the same look of wonder on their faces as was on mine. How many things had they seen, how many worlds, and yet they could be awed by this one planet?
Amy and Rory stepped away from the Doctor and me, apparently picking flowers or trying to catch butterflies or something.
I lay back against the grass with a sigh, closing my eyes in comfort. All of this was nearly too much to take in, the idea that one could travel through not just vast distances of space but also through time... was mind-boggling.
"What if this is a dream?"
I hadn't realized that I would say this out loud until I did, and my eyes flew open to see the Doctor looking at me.
The Doctor followed my example, laying back in the grass at apparent ease. "If you can't trust your senses, what can you trust?" he replied, looking up into the sky, "I suppose it is often what we take in that is the most likely to be wrong, but how else can we go about life other than... feeling it?" He eyes grew distant and dark as he gazed upwards and I realized for the first time that he was much older than he looked, much much older.
"I hope you don't think I'm being rude, but..." I swallowed before continuing, "I know that Rory and Amy are from England, and that they're married, and that you whisked them away from home a few days ago for a "vacation"... But, I honestly still don't know who or what you are."
He kept his eyes fixed upwards, towards the light, and waited a few moments before speaking.
"I'm a Time Lord," he replied, "the last of my kind. An alien race. Does that scare you?" For the first time in a few minutes he glanced over at me and I held his gaze.
"Not really, not when I've seen all that I've seen today."
He nodded absently, turning his gaze skyward once more. There was a warm, gentle breeze winding through the grass, caressing my face.
"I travel in the TARDIS," he continued, "because it's what I was meant to do. I'm a wanderer." He looked almost sad as he said this, and I got the feeling, suddenly, that even with his friends by his side he was still lonely. "My purpose so far has been to protect the people of earth, but I haven't always done the best job... But I can't turn away from it, though, it's who I am."
"Who are you?" I whispered, and he sighed.
"The Doctor," he replied, "just... the Doctor."
And that's the most I found out about him for quite some time.
