A/N: Hi there! I'm back with the next chapter of A Parallel world, really hope you'll like it.
Here's chapter 3!
"But what if she'll recognize us?" Rose asked as they left the house again. She was wearing a pink dress that she would have liked much better if she hadn't known it belongs to the Writer's dead mother.
"She's 80. Let's hope she'll recognize me." The Writer answered, and knocked on the door.
Just like she said, an old woman opened the door. She smiled as she saw the teenager there, and ignored the Doctor and Rose.
"Good morning, Mrs. Mortimer," the young girl said with a kind smile, "How are you?"
"Oh, I'm fine, dear. And before I forget, happy birthday!"
"Thank you." The Writer smiled lightly. "Mrs. Mortimer, can I have the key to my house? I'm afraid I've lost mine."
The old woman appeared confused. "Didn't your friend give it back to you?"
"My friend?"
"Yes, Emily something. She came by to take it yesterday, so she could get in your house to let everybody in for the surprise party!" Mrs. Mortimer said, and then became worried. "I've ruined the surprise, haven't I?"
The Writer chuckled. "No, don't worry. The party is happening right now, I just wanted to make sure I have a key. I'll just ask Ali for it. Thanks Mrs. Mortimer, have a wonderful day." she smiled and turned to walk away.
The Doctor and Rose turned to follow, but Mrs. Mortimer suddenly noticed they were there.
"Are you her friends?"
"Yes," the Writer answered quickly from behind them. She put her hand on the Doctor's shoulder. "This is Roy Lester," she put her other hand on Rose's shoulder, "and this is Astrid Tyler."
The Doctor and Rose exchanged quick confused looks, and then looked back at the old lady and smiled. "Nice to meet you." The Doctor said kindly.
"I'm sorry Mrs. Mortimer, but we've really got to go. Thanks for your help!" the Writer said and hurried away.
The Doctor and Rose tried to follow, but Mrs. Mortimer grabbed the Doctor's arm suddenly and they both turned to her.
"Are you new here?"
"Yes."
"Thought so. I haven't seen her that cheerful ever since her parents…" her voice trailed off. "I don't know where you're from, but if that's the influence you have on her, don't ever leave." she said with a warm smile and let go of his arm. The Doctor quickly recovered from his shock, smiled back, and walked away quickly.
The Writer was waiting for them with her arms crossed next to her house, just a couple of steps away, but far enough from Mrs. Mortimer's house to make sure she wouldn't hear them.
"You didn't tell us it's your birthday!" Rose called to her.
"Because it isn't."
Rose froze for a second, confused. As the Writer noticed her confused expression, she sighed and explained.
"As lovely as Mrs. Mortimer is, her memory isn't as well as it used to be. Whoever needed a key to my house told her she's planning my birthday party. Since she doesn't remember my actual birthday, she believed it. I didn't want to make her think she's done anything wrong, it would upset her. So I just played along with the lie."
"So all we have to do is to find this Emily." Rose said, slowly catching up.
The Writer rolled her eyes at her, as if she's missing something awfully obvious, and then looked at the Doctor, as if he indeed realized that obvious thing. To Rose's dismay, he did.
"Emily is an alias. If you'd bother so much to break into someone's house, would you have given away your real name?" he explained, and Rose nodded. Yes, it was obvious.
"Roy Lester?" the Time Lord asked the teenager suddenly.
She shrugged and smirked. "Whoever stole the TARDIS isn't the only person that can make up names. Roy Lester is an anagram of Rose Tyler."
"And what about Astrid Tyler?"
"Astrid is an anagram of TARDIS. I just let you keep the Tyler, since no one would suspect anyway."
The man stared at the Writer in shock. "Did you just make that up?"
She nodded.
"That's brilliant! How did you do it so quickly?" he said admiringly, and a large grin spread on the Writer's face.
"I just think quickly," she said with a dismissive shrug, although she was clearly flattered, "always had. Just like the Doctor." she winked and started walking. "Let's go find the TARDIS! Allons-y!"
The Doctor and his companion exchanged confused looks for the hundredth time that day and followed quickly.
"Where are we going, exactly?" the Doctor asked after a while of silent walking.
"No idea. I just make it up as we go." she turned her head to look at him and smiled. "But I do it brilliantly."
The Doctor was confused for a moment, but then understood. "I said that, didn't I?"
"Yes."
"Right."
The Doctor slowed down just a bit, to create a gap between the Writer and Rose and him. He leaned slightly to his companion. "So what do you think?"
"To be honest? Something about her scares me. She just knows too much about us, and acts so much like you… I'd say she might be an alien, but she isn't."
"There's one thing I can tell you about her."
"And what is it?"
The Doctor's expression became curious and a bit worried. "She's nothing like anyone else we've ever met."
"I know!" the Writer suddenly cried and stopped. She waited until the Doctor and Rose reached her. "There's this building a few blocks away, a factory I think. For a long time I've had this feeling that something was wrong with it, but I couldn't pinpoint what it was. I finally realized what it was!"
The Doctor and Rose stared at her for a moment, waiting for her to continue. It seemed she hadn't noticed she wasn't talking out loud.
"Er, Writer?"
Her stare focused on her. "Yes?"
Rose raised her eyebrows.
"Right. Explain. The strange thing about it is that I've never seen the door open. Never."
"Perhaps you were just never there when someone entered." Rose suggested.
"No, that's not it. There are windows there, and I've never seen anyone through them. It's like they're just pictures of windows."
"Let's go, then!" the Doctor said, now actually curious.
The Writer smiled at them and started talking again
The three of them stood in front of the large building and stared at it. It was seemingly normal at first sight, but once they've really looked at it, they saw the problem the Writer mentioned – the windows looked faked. The Doctor walked to the door and buzzed his sonic screwdriver at it.
"It won't open." he announced after a moment. "I don't think it's even a real door. It can't open."
The three of them were silent again.
"So what do we do next?" Rose asked.
"Breakfast?"
Rose shrugged in agreement.
"There's a nice diner around the corner. The owner owes me a favor so we wouldn't have to pay."
"What kind of favor?" the Doctor questioned.
"There was a fire in school a couple of weeks ago. I ran back inside to get his daughter out." The Writer answered casually without looking at them. After a few seconds of silence, she realized they were staring at her. "What?" she finally asked.
"You ran into a fire!" Rose said, as if she missed that part of the story.
"I know, I was there."
"You could have died!" the Doctor said, shocked as well.
"And so could she. What makes my life more important than hers?"
"But you could have both died!"
"What better way is there to die than by trying to help someone?" the teenager said calmly.
Rose looked at the Doctor helplessly, waiting for him to say something that'll make the young girl realize how dangerous her actions were, but he was quiet. At first Rose thought he was surprised like she was, but then she saw something else in his eyes – admiration, or perhaps empathy, to that young girl who risked her life to save someone else's.
The Writer opened the diner's door, and a bell rang as the door opened. They entered the empty diner, and the owner looked up from the newspaper he was reading.
"Lifesaver! Haven't seen in you for a while."
The Writer smiled. "Good morning, Joe. How's the business?"
"Does anyone call her by her name?" Rose muttered to herself.
Joe gestured to the empty diner. "Same as always."
"What did you break this time?" she asked with an amused sigh, and the diner owner looked away for a moment in fake embarrassment.
"The toaster."
"Again?" she laughed.
"Who are your fri – " Joe started, but then surprise took its place on his face and his mouth opened. "David Tennant and Billie Piper! How did you become friends with them?!"
"It's about time someone would recognize them." The teenager muttered and rolled her eyes with a smirk.
The balding man hurried from behind the counter and shook their hands in enthusiasm as they did their best to hide their surprise. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Anything you want – it's on the house."
"Where's my tool box?" the Writer asked.
"Right where you left it." Joe answered.
"Alright, then. I'll be back in a minute." she assured her friends, and left to a side room where her tool box probably was.
Joe focused his attention on the supposedly celebrities. "Please, have a seat." he gestured to a nearby table, and they sat down with an awkward smile. Neither of them was used to be a celebrity. Well, at least Rose wasn't.
They stared at the table until Joe brought them menus and, finally, went to the other room to see what the Writer was doing. Rose stared at the red tablecloth for a moment, and then looked up to meet the Doctor's gaze. They looked at each other seriously for a second, and then two joyful smiles spread on their faces.
"Billie Piper?" the Doctor said, clearly amused.
Rose laughed. "Look who's talking, Mr. David Tennant."
The two of them giggled.
"Can you believe that?" Rose said after a moment. "They genuinely think we've actors, and that you're just a story. We don't even need fake names – they've given us ones!"
The Doctor's expression turned serious."Someone's trying very hard to make us powerless, and I can't bear not knowing who it is."
Rose's smile faded for a second, but then she put her hand on his and gave it a squeeze. She smiled a small comforting smile. "Don't worry," she assured him, "we'll find the TARDIS and whoever took it and we'll make it. We always do."
The Doctor smiled faintly at her and squeezed her hand.
The Writer suddenly appeared behind the Doctor.
"Am I interrupting something?" she asked, and made the two of them jump. They quickly let go of each other's hand, and said "No." simultaneously.
Only then they noticed she was wearing 3D spectacles.
"I thought you were fixing his toaster."
"That's exactly what I did." she answered casually as she sat down next to the Doctor.
"Then why are you wearing these glasses?" the Time Lord asked.
The Writer shrugged and, without giving any further explanations, picked up her menu and read it. To Rose's dismay, the Doctor did the same without asking an explanation. As she realized she wouldn't get a proper answer, she picked up her menu as well.
After the free breakfast, the three of them headed back to the Writer's house to come up with a way to enter the mysterious factory. They walked quietly, each one thinking of a way they could get in that building, because there was one thing they were sure of – the TARDIS was in that building.
When they got to the house, the Doctor drew a sketch of the building.
"There's an empty building in the middle of the street. It has neither a door nor windows, yet it is possible to enter it without attracting attention."
"Does it have a chimney?" Rose asked, with a new idea in her head.
"No."
"Oh." she replied, disappointed.
They three of them stared at the drawing for a couple of minutes.
"We clearly don't have any new ideas."
"Yes, thank you for pointing that out." Rose answered irritated.
"Do you know what I do when I need to concentrate in something?" the Writer asked rhetorically.
The Doctor and his companion looked at her in anticipation.
"Distract myself from it."
And so the three of them found themselves watching 5 more episodes of Doctor Who. Even though the Doctor would never admit it, he liked the programme. It presented him as the heroic rescuer, and he liked that image. They were in the middle of their fifth episode, when the Writer suddenly cried: "I know!", and made the Doctor and Rose jump.
Before either of them could ask, she grabbed a pen and the paper on which they drew the sketch of the building. "We did it wrong!"
"I'm sorry, what exactly did we do wrong?
"The sketch! Doctor, you drew the building and the houses next to it as different units, but they're connected!" she scribbled in the space between the drawn buildings until it looked like they're adjacent to each other.
"So there must be a door connecting them!" the Doctor announced happily, finally catching up. "Oh, you're brilliant!"
"Can any of you explain?"
The Writer was the one to do so. "The empty building and the houses next to it are adjacent to each other. The only possible way to enter the building is through a door that connects the house and the building. Think about it – who would suspect people getting in and out of a house?"
Rose nodded slowly as the bits of information began making sense. "So all we have to do is to get in that house, and we're in!"
"Exactly!" the teenager confirmed, and then smiled excitedly. "Let's go. We'll be out before it's time for lunch."
The Doctor and Rose got up immediately, thrilled to finally be active again. The Writer almost ran to the door and opened it as she said "Allons-y!", which made the Doctor smile.
The Doctor, his companion and their teenager friend stood in the street in front of the mysterious building.
"Whatever's in there," the Doctor thought out loud, "it wants me to get inside. That building is the trap, and the TARDIS is the bait. Nevertheless, I have no other choice but to enter."
"Of course you have!" the Writer announced. "We're going to break into a house in a main street. We need a distraction. If only we had a famous actor that could get everyone to notice him…" she said with a cunning smile, and the Doctor grinned as well.
"How am I supposed to get them to look at me?"
The teenager looked around them for a moment and then found what she was looking for. "You see these four girls over there?" she pointed, and the Doctor nodded. "They're in my class, and they love Doctor Who. Bump into them 'by accident', and they'll create the distraction for you."
Rose pushed the Doctor towards the girls. "Off you go."
The Doctor looked at the girls for a moment, and when he turned back, Rose and the Writer were almost at the house's door.
"Oi." he called, and they turned around. "Be careful." he said seriously.
Rose smiled reassuringly, and the girls turned back to the house.
So what do you think is in the empty building? A friend? An enemy? And who is it? Leave your guess in the reviews and find out if you got it right in the next chapter ;)