Adventures of John: The Doctor, the Daleks, and the Dragon

Chapter 2: The TARDIS

I tumbled out of the rift, expecting to find myself in some dangerous alternate earth, possibly with an evil version of me to face. Instead I found myself in the center of the TARDIS console room, facing a stunned Eleventh Doctor and Clara Oswald.

"Doctor?" I asked in shock.

"John?" he responded, sounding equally shocked. We stood still for a moment, staring at each other, until Clara interjected.

"Oi!" she exclaimed, getting our attention. "What happened to you being all grown-up and stuff? You look like you're seventeen or something."

"That's because I am seventeen," I answered. "Technically. I don't age when I'm in the magical realms, and time flows differently there. If you count my time in the magical realms, I'm older than you are. I looked how I did before because I can magically change my age. When I have magic, that is."

"I liked you better when you were older and all magic-like," Clara pouted. "You were a lot hotter then."

"He's taken, remember?" the Doctor admonished. "The cool ice lady is his girlfriend." He chuckled for a moment. "See what I did there? Cool, ice?"

"Wife, actually," I answered. "We got married."

Clara shrieked, running up and wrapping me in a hug. "You got married! That's amazing! How was the wedding?"

"And why weren't we invited?" the Doctor asked, looking a bit hurt. Suddenly the TARDIS rocked violently, sending us all off of our feet. "I almost forgot!" the Doctor exclaimed, running back to the control console "We're being attacked!"

"You're being attacked?!" I shouted. "Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I forgot!" the Doctor shot back, flipping a few switches. "You're very distracting! Now just give me a moment…" The ship rocked again from a second blast as the Doctor flipped a switch, sending the ship into a series of convulsions. When it finally stopped shaking everything was calm, no more rocking or explosions. "Alright then!" the exclaimed, letting out his breath. "We're good for now. I think." He turned to me, wringing his hands together. "So, about the wedding…"

"I didn't have a way to contact you," I told him. "You took the card back, remember? Plus, you told me traveling to alternate realities was nearly impossible for the TARDIS."

"I would have still liked to receive an invitation!" he retorted, throwing his hands up into the air.

"You're lecturing me about not sending you an invitation to my wedding?" I questioned. "I'm not the one chatting it up while he's being attacked!"

"You're the one that just dropped into my ship!" he exclaimed, immediately before quieting down and getting his "thinking face". "How did you do that anyway?"

I was just about to answer when there was a long, very grumpy-sounding meow from behind me. Turning around, I saw my orange tabby Stripes perched on the railing. "Stripes?" I asked. "Really?"

"What is a cat doing on my ship?" the Doctor inquired.

"I guess he must have come through the portal after me," I answered, picking the cat up. "I thought I had kept him from coming through, but… Did a LEGO set fall in here too?" Pixie fluttered up to my ear, berating me for caring about so trivial a thing at a time like this. As usual, neither the Doctor nor Clara seemed to see her.

"Why are you here?" the Doctor questioned. "And how did you get here?"

"A rift opened in the fabric of the universe," I answered. "Either something is happening in your universe that is ripping it apart from the inside, or someone has gotten their hands on the spell that the Technomancer tried to use."

"Then I guess we have work to do," the Doctor responded. "Saving the universe and all that."

"Just like old times, right?"

"Yes," he answered. "Just like old times." Now that we were done with the business end of things, a grin spread across his face and he wrapped me in a big hug. "It's nice to see you again," he laughed. "So how was the wedding? Is everything going well?"

"The wedding was fantastic," I answered. "And everything is going wonderfully. At least it was before the rifts started opening up. What about you?"

"Well, you know me," he said, "same old Doctor. Clara's a teacher now, but you should already know that because of my television program you have in your universe."

"I actually did know that," I told him. "I just don't know where in time you are in relation to me." So, Clara was a teacher now. That meant that his encounter with the War Doctor and the Tenth Doctor, and after that Trenzalor, couldn't be too far off. And that meant that the Doctor, or my Doctor anyway, wouldn't be alive much longer. But I couldn't let him know that. "I'm glad to see you both."

"It's nice to see you to kid," Clara responded. "Though it is a little creepy to think of someone your age being married."

"Older than you," I reminded her. "Magical realms, alternate realities, do we have to go over this again?"

"No, I've got it," she answered, suppressing a giggle. "It's just funny, is all."

"Doctor," I said, changing the subject. "What was it that was attacking us?"

"Daleks," he answered. "But don't worry, we lost 'em."

"But don't Daleks have time travel too?" I asked. "How can you be entirely sure you lost them?"

"They couldn't possibly-" suddenly the TARDIS rocked violently, an explosion sounding outside. "I guess they could." He ran to the controls, flipping switches and pulling levers. "I've got a trick that will lose them for sure. Just hang on there!" We then went through another series of shaking and rocking and banging our heads on hard objects. When we finally stopped, the Doctor looked up from the console. "There!" he declared. "Now we've lost them!"

"But where, and when, are we?" I asked.

"Why don't we look outside and find out?"