I shook my head and was met with a heavy drumming behind my eyes. The world was a blur of white snow and rising blobs of color and movement. Someone shouted at me, but their words were muffled and alien. I shook my head again and the world began to clear. The Doctor hovered over me, the light from the streetlamp above creating a halo affect around his hair.
"Time to get up, Gracie, come on," he was saying, "'Atta girl, that's it," he put his hand on my lower back to help sit me up.
A howl like a bird dying and a cat hissing pounded through my head, and the Doctor pulled me up off of the mountain of potato sacks we had luckily landed on. I looked up, and above us the Timeworm stuck its slimy, prickly head out the window. Globs of saliva dripped onto my shoulder and the Doctor pulled me across the street.
"Where are we going?"
"The Tardis!"
The little blue box I had drawn came to mind and I looked at him as if he were crazy. "How is a police box going to help us? I don't think the authorities can handle–" A great scream that sent gooseflesh along my arms broke into the night, and the people behind us shouted in fear. The Timeworm had thrown itself, all twenty feet of it, out of my flat window and began its slithering trek towards us. The Doctor pulled me into a café, through the eating area and past a few worried kitchen workers, and into the back lot. The Tardis sat there lightly powdered in snow. I looked at the Doctor. He looked at me.
"Don't worry; it's bigger on the inside."
He snapped his fingers and the doors opened, and without a word he hauled me inside.
The interior lengthened and all around me curved cement awnings and walkways, all around a tube that glowed blue with panels and wild buttons encircling it. It wasn't until I saw the Doctor pulling one of the levers and twisting the knobs that I realized my mouth was open.
"You better hold on to something," the Doctor jerked another level and a familiar whirring sound encased us. I shut my mouth and teetered over to a handle that jutted out of the panel, gripping it tightly. Outside, the Timeworm screeched and rammed itself against the Tardis doors.
"Oh, no you don't beastie," the Doctor typed something into a panel, "Not today."
Suddenly we were shaking, and the Timeworm's howling was replaced by the whirring and clicking of the Tardis, and I knew, I knew that we were traveling up and backward through time. I held on shakily to the handle until we came to a complete, uncomfortably silent stop. The Doctor looked at me around his gadgets and gizmos.
"It's alright now," he set his hands over mine and pried my fingers from the handle. My knuckles hurt from gripping it so hard, and he held them for a moment in his hands. "Everything is alright, Grace,"
His eyes caught me, made me believe that, even if for the moment, everything was okay. I nodded, and he held my hands a second longer than necessary. He dropped them and turned for the door.
"You won't be needing that coat and scarf anymore," he said as he pushed the door open. The sound of waves crashing against the shoreline and gulls calling along the gulf seeped into the Tardis. There was music some ways off, and, curious, I stepped outside.
We were surrounded by nature, a towering cliffside behind us and a roaring ocean ahead. Waves foamed when they slapped against the beach, and sprayed the air as they roared against the rocks in the shallows. In the distance, a great Ferris wheel twinkled and turned. It was a boardwalk carnival, and the haunting circus music mingled with the swish of the waves.
"August, 1952. We're on Whitechapel beach, in Maine." The Doctor stuck his hands into his pockets and squinted against the setting sun. "Ah, a car-na-val."
I blinked, shedding my coat and scarf. "We're in America? In 1952?"
"In Maine, in August," the Doctor smiled and took my winter wear and tossed them into the Tardis. "Since I'm not sure of the Timeworm's age I moved us back a bit, just to be safe."
"You moved us back nearly a hundred years."
He began to walk along the beach towards the carnival. "Seventy-two, to be exact." He paused to look back at me. Offering his arm, he smiled, saying, "Come along now. I do believe that's caramel corn I smell."
Just as he said it, the salty sweet smell of the treat drifted towards me on the wind. I took a deep breath, taking in the serenity of what encased us. And there, as I felt my body relax just a bit, I figured that if these were possibly that the hours of my life, I might as well enjoy them.
I skipped over to the Doctor and looped my arm through his. "As long as we're here, we've got to ride the carrousel."
"Of course,"
"And the Ferris wheel."
"Well, that's obvious. You can't go to any carnival and not ride the Ferris wheel."
A laugh, a true, good laugh, burst out of me before I could catch it. It turned silly, and I couldn't stop laughing. Tears sprung into my eyes, happy ones, and I apologized as I wiped them away. "I'm sorry," I let out a low chuckle. "I haven't had a reason to laugh for a long time."
Knowingly, the Doctor patted my hand. "You can tell me all about it over a sticky mess of cotton candy, at the very tip top of the Ferris wheel." He looked so kindly down at me, his green eyes mirroring that of the ocean beside us. I smiled, and the corner of his mouth perked up into a grin.
So, daringly, I said, "It's a date."
And, more daringly, I suppose, he made no objection, and we stepped onto the boardwalk as if we had known each other all our lives.
Sorry for the short chapter! For some weird reason of mine, I wrote too much to put in the 2nd chapter and split it up so that there could be a proper 3rd. Thank you for reading my FF! Tally ho! - A/G/S