Chapter Three

Pain. That was all he felt.

Mentally shaking himself awake and trying to clear away the fog that had gathered in his brain, the Doctor winced. His head felt like it had been bashed in with a metal bat, like the ones used in the human sport, baseball.

Multiple times, he added to himself. Wincing again, his eyes still shut; the Doctor struggled to remember what had happened.

Thesupernova… ah, yes. It must have hit us just before we dematerialised, he recalled,and then the lurch that had sent him flying into the wall flitted across his memory as well. Certainly not something he would like to experience again, if at least for another regeneration. Flying across the room was for winged creatures, space travel was for Time Lords and their ships. He certainly wasn't the former.

A sudden wave of pain rippled through his head. The Doctor raised a hand reflexively and held it to his skull; it came away feeling wet and warm, some substance coating the back of his head, presumably blood. He hoped to Rasillion it wasn't, deciding he didn't want to know and dismissing the thought.

There was a shuffle of feet and something cold was pressed to his forehead as what felt like fingers gently lifted his head up, cupping the back of his neck. Knowing that he had had no passengers that could have possessed such appendages, his eyes fluttered groggily open to locate the source. He found his answers as soon as his vision focused again.

Two pairs of brown eyes met, one shocked and the other confused. Cradling his injured skull in one hand and holding a damp towel in the other, a young human girl with short hair and owlish features stared down at him.

"What?"

0000000

Theresa now sat in a white chair next to the tall, green centre column, knees in her chest, her eyes wide but unseeing as she attempted to take in everything around her. The girl might have possessed a large imagination, but she would have hardly even been able to dream of something as grand and alien as the (obviously) trans-dimensional… "Thing"… she was in.

When she had cautiously entered the glowing room she had encountered the unconscious body of a supposedly human man, lying on the grating underfoot, crimson staining the floor underneath his head. It was difficult at first to recognise the wound, due to the wild thatch of brown hair upon his head, but when Theresa lifted him upward and moved it aside, a gash about an inch long could be seen, crusted with old blood. Fresh instinct rising inside her, Theresa had set aside her fear and confusion and began to apply as much medical attention to the man as she could… however little that might have been. At least she had cleaned most of the blood; now she just had to wait for him to come 'round.

Then she had been forced to think about it, as her mind was unable to distract itself with anything else.

She had been overwhelmed with awe and amazement at first.

The grandness of the "Thing" had taken Theresa's breath away – it still did; as it seemed to possess a beauty she would have never even attempted to imagine. A low, peaceful thrumming vibrated through her chest and it was somehow soothing. The green glow of the large column in the centre of the room was eerie but somehow omitted a peaceful calm.

But now, a few minutes after, an eerie, spine-prickling feeling ran down her neck and back and made shivers flood through her.

Is this all a mistake? She questioned. Was the man really a human – surely a regular person wouldn't have possessed such an object, much less be able touse it. And if he was an alien – even though the idea seemed absurd given his obviously human appearance – was she wrong to have helped him? Was he friendly? After all, she'd seen so many hostile-alien movies it was hard to say. Was it simply coincidence that he had "landed" in her apartment, or were they out to get her? (Another absurd thought driven of a wild imagination; and Theresa dismissed the audacity at once whilst taking into consideration she had no idea who "they" were.) And what was this odd, coral-looking thing? Was it some sort of spaceship? How the heck had it gotten into her bedroom without going through the roof or the window or the wall – or did it travel some other way?

As even more haunting questions buzzed relentlessly through Theresa's poor human mind, a soft moan came from the corner where the alien-man lay, and the young woman's gaze snapped over to him. He was rousing, lifting a hand to the back of his head, eyes still closed but wincing all the same.

I'll have to find out, won't I? She thought, reaching for the damp towel on the side-table and rising to her feet. After all, if she wanted answers it was best to get on whatever good side this being possessed first, and then she should be safe to interrogate. (Surely, she thought, someone with the ability to work this thing has to at least have a smidgen of understanding for my situation.) But that was also assuming the being would speak any English at all.Which is unlikely, she added to herself.

She hurried over as the man's hand came away smeared crimson after reaching behind his head; maybe she hadn't treated the wound as thoroughly as she'd thought.

She laid the cloth across his forehead, where a small amount of perspiration had accumulated, and lifted his head slight off the chair, making to clean the wound again. However, at her touch, the man's eyes flickered open and both brown gazes locked, one fearful and the other confused. Her mind froze, as if put on pause, and all her thought processes halted for a few moments.

"What?" He exclaimed.

…

The Doctor's mind was frantically at work as he tried to figure out how a human had gotten into his almost impenetrable ship. The coordinates he'd entered – it might've been wherever he was that had to do with this girl, but how had she gotten in? But then an explanation occurred to him as he considered the nasty blow they'd taken from the supernova: the TARDIS was obviously unconscious. But still – unconscious or not, the door should have been securely locked.

His conclusions having been made in a matter of milliseconds, the Doctor unfurrowed his eyebrows and blinked before opening his mouth to talk.

"Hello," he quipped, doing his best to sound friendly.

At this, the young woman's eyes widened and she leaned back a bit, drawing her hand away from his face; she bore the wet towel that had been against his forehead. She looked a little fearful, but mostly bewildered. The doctor knew that she had good reason to be.

'S not every day you walk into a trans-dimensional Call Box. Unless you're me, of course, but of course she's not so I s'pose she has a reason to be a little afraid.

"Er… hello." Her accent was American, he quickly noted, like old Capitan Jack Harkness; she tried to regain her composure, but it was obviously difficult. "Are-are you alright? I-I think you hit your head… I came in and you were unconscious…" she trailed off. He raised his eyebrows; how had she known?

"Actually, I feel quite alright. Just a bit of a headache, but that's to be expected, what with the fall I took." As if to prove his point, he pushed himself to his feet, rising to stand his full height of six-foot-two and trying to ignite one of his famous grins. He felt light headed and woozy, but he dismissed the feeling as a simple head-rush from lying on the ground for so long. But something warm trickled down the back of his neck, and a slight wave of nausea rose in his stomach.

"But, um, you're bleeding pretty badly." The young human seemed to regain a little confidence as the Doctor felt the place his head hurt the most, beginning to frown. He looked at his hand, which was now smeared with said crimson substance. He grimaced. That could be a bit of a problem… also explained the light-headedness. The human continued a little rapidly, "I found a gash on your head and I did my best to clean it… but I guess I didn't do very well."

The Doctor nodded in understanding, taking the towel she had just offered to him and trying to clean what he could out of his hair. It seemed that the only other doctor he'd ever met and/or travelled with was Martha; his stomach flopped in protest of her memory. "It's really quite alright." He grinned again, ignoring the pain in his head and uneasiness of his past companion's memory – he'd had much worse that a simple gash. "I'm the Doctor, by the way; seems you've stumbled upon my ship." His grin widened and he gestured around the control room with his free arm. "This is the TARDIS – stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."

"This," she gestured to the floor, a doubtfully inquisitive eyebrow raised, "is a spaceship?"

"More or less," he replied, winking at the bewildered girl and splitting another bazillion-watt grin. He continued on rapidly, his words spoken so fast and without break or pause that they were almost hard to follow. "It's really more of a vessel, I think, given it's size, but you humans consider anything that travels through zero gravity a spaceship so I s'pose you're right in that regard. I mean, I always call it my ship, if that's what you're saying. It may not be a spaceship in human standards – considering the fact that it's trans-dimensional – but it's a ship all the same. Oh – where are my manners?" He extended his free hand, grinning all the while and fully aware that he had gone through the entire speech in three simple breaths. "What's your name?"

The woman seemed confused for a moment, her brows drawn together in concentration. The Doctor knew from experience that he seemed to have that effect on people; usually talking so fast it took them a few moments to catch up. Only one time, unlike his other passengers, Donna, the runaway bride, had slapped him instead of just standing there looking confused.

"Theresa Schwartz," she finally provided, reaching out and shaking his extended hand. "It's… it's a pleasure to meet you."

"So, Miss Schwartz," the Doctor went on, gesturing ahead, towards where he hoped the med bay was now located, "how is it that you came to be in my ship?"