AN: Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews! I only own Ali Carter and anything else you don't recognize.
Chapter Four: The Time Machine
When I opened my eyes, I discovered I was lying on some kind of examination table. The room that I was in was bathed in a soft white light. I looked around see medical equipment scattered all around me, some of the equipment didn't look like it belonged on Earth. Oh, crap! Did the Judoon bring me aboard their ship? I don't want to be experimented on!
The Doctor chose that moment to walk into the room.
"Doctor!" I exclaimed.
"Ali, you're not supposed to be awake. You're supposed to be resting," he scolded me.
I sat up all the way; my feet couldn't even reach the floor. Geez, I was shorter than I thought. The Doctor went over to a table, picked up a square looking gadget, and then he slowly moved it and down my body.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm checking your vitals, now hush!" the Doctor rudely replied.
I rolled my eyes at him. "Has anyone told you that you're completely rude?"
"Yes, they have. Now, hush! I'm busy!"
I scowled at him, while trying to fight the urge to slap him. The device in the Doctor's hand made a little beeping sound.
"Am I good, then?" I asked him.
"Your vitals are fine," he told me.
The Doctor knelt in front of me and gently took my hands into his own. He stared at me intently, with a sorrowful expression on his face. "Ali, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I did not mean for you to get hurt."
What did he mean by that?
Oh, now I remembered.
I stared at the Doctor with a panicked look on my face. "Miss Finnegan… she sucked my blood out with a straw!"
The Doctor looked guilty. "I know, and I'm so sorry. She was supposed to pick me."
"I should be dead! How am I alive? Where's Martha? Is she alright? What about the hospital?"
"Martha used CPR to bring you back; I was able to stop the machine from frying people's brain stems," the Doctor told me.
"What about the Judoon, and Miss Finnegan?"
"The Judoon discovered that Miss Finnegan was the alien, and then they returned the hospital before everyone ran out of air."
I suddenly came to a terrifying realization. If Miss Finnegan used my blood to assimilate, and the Judoon discovered that she wasn't human. Oh my God!
"Doctor, what am I?" I asked sounding scared.
The Doctor looked apologetic. "I don't know, I'm sorry."
"I don't understand, both my parents were human! What happened to me?" I yelled at him.
The Doctor pulled me into a hug, and rubbed my back comfortingly. "I know. I double checked the results, triple checked them. You were definitely born a human, but something happened to change you."
"What did I change into?" I inquired tearfully.
The Doctor pulled away slightly, and wiped the tears away. "Ali, I promise that I will sort this out. You just need to trust me. Can you do that for me?"
I nodded. "I have no idea what I should do now." I said feeling helpless.
The Doctor took a step back, and held out his hand. "Travel with me," he said unexpectedly.
"Huh?"
He grinned at me. "Travel with me, inside the TARDIS."
"What's the TARDIS?"
"It's my ship, we're in her right now," the Doctor said proudly.
I gave him a small smile as I took his hand. "Okay."
The Doctor laughed. "Brilliant!"
He proceeded to drag me out of what I guessed was the med-bay. After going down many corridors, we finally made it to a large room with a sort of orange-ish glow. In the middle of the room there was a large see through cylinder connected to a console with a lot of buttons and levers. Around the edges of the room there were large coral looking columns.
"She's beautiful," I gasped.
The Doctor looked pleased by my comment. "Thank you!" He let go of my hand, and raced away to open some doors.
"Now, if you want to see something else that's beautiful, come and take a look out here."
I went over to the Doctor, curious to see what he wanted to show me. I stood next to him and looked out to see billions of dazzling stars.
"Ali, meet the universe," announced the Doctor proudly.
I turned slightly to look up, and found the Doctor smiling at me, waiting for my response.
"It's…wonderful," I told him, no other words coming to my mind at the moment.
He nodded, still smiling. "Yeah, it is," he agreed.
I smiled back. "What now?"
"Well…" the Doctor drawled. "I was thinking of going back to pick up Martha, and taking her on some sort of thank you trip."
"Doctor, I'm still wearing my hospital gown," I stated.
He raised one eyebrow at me. "So?"
"So, I would like to change my clothes," I shot back.
The Doctor made a huffing noise. "Alright! There is a wardrobe. Leave the control room, make two rights and three lefts, it should be around somewhere."
I snorted. Well, those were helpful directions. Not.
Earlier, when the Doctor dragged me to the control room, I didn't get a good look at the corridors. Now, I could see that the walls were a light yellow decorated with blue round things.
How do I get to the wardrobe, again? I wondered.
As soon as I had that thought pop into my head, the lights in the corridor to the right of me turned on, I had a feeling in my gut there was something special about the Doctor's spaceship. I shrugged my shoulders, and decided to follow the trail of lights.
Five minutes later, I finally made it to the wardrobe, and I was amazed at the sight of it. It was freaking huge. There was a long golden platform leading to the middle of the room, where there was spiral staircase. Also, there were more coral shaped columns throughout the room.
I headed towards a rack of clothes, eager to look through them. My hospital gown felt disgusting and grimy, I couldn't wait to put on a fresh change of clothes. I immediately found a pair of black jeggings, a grey t-shirt with the Assassin's creed logo on it, a dark blue zip up hoodie, and some white keds. I quickly put on my new clothes, and I went back to the control room. I discovered that the Doctor was nowhere to be found.
"Doctor!" I shouted. "Where are you?"
I was met with silence, so I decided to exit the TARDIS, and look for him. I found the Doctor leaning against the TARDIS, which looked like blue box. That can't be right. It was so big on the inside, and it just looked like a small wooden blue box that had the word police written on it, on the outside.
Weird, but I loved it.
I noticed that the Doctor was smirking at my stunned reaction.
I mock glared at him. "You could have told me that the TARDIS looked like blue wooden police box."
The Doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Where's the fun in that?"
He made an excellent point.
I heard the sound of footsteps at the entrance of the alleyway; I turned around to see one Martha Jones standing there. She wasn't wearing her work clothes any longer. Instead she was wearing form hugging jeans, and a pink top along with a red leather jacket. I also noticed that her black hair was pulled up, and she had put on some golden hoop earrings.
"Martha, I'm glad you're okay," I said.
She smiled slightly. "I was just about to say that to you."
"I'm fine. I went to the moon, today"
Martha laughed "Me too!"
"The moon is bit more peaceful than down here," the Doctor added.
I snorted. I wouldn't consider running away from alien rhinos peaceful.
"You never even told me who you are," stated Martha.
"The Doctor."
I rolled my eyes. "You know that's not what she's talking about."
Martha nodded her head in agreement. "What sort of species? It's not every day I get to ask that."
"I'm a Time Lord," answered the Doctor.
I snickered. "Ooh, that sounds fancy."
"Right! Not pompous at all, then," said Martha sarcastically.
"I just thought since you saved Ali, and helped me," the Doctor pulled out a new sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "that you might fancy a trip."
Martha protested. "I can't. I've got exams. I've got things to do. I have to go into town first thing and pay the rent; I've got my family going mad…"
The Doctor interjected "If it helps, I can travel in time as well."
"You didn't mention that to me earlier!" I exclaimed.
"I'm getting to it now, aren't I," he responded cheekily.
"Get out of here," said Martha in disbelief.
"I can," the Doctor smirked.
Martha snorted. "Come on now, that's going too far."
"I'll prove it," he told us.
The Doctor entered the TARDIS, and after a moment the blue box disappears while making strange whirring sounds.
I gasped in delight. That was awesome!
Martha and I watched as the blue box reappeared just a moment later. The Doctor stepped out of TARDIS, holding his tie.
"Told you," he said smugly.
Martha looked shocked. "I know, but that was this morning! Oh, my God! You can travel in time!"
Things started to click in place, in my mind. "You just traveled to the past."
The Doctor winked at me. "Yup." He started to put on his tie, again.
Martha looked puzzled. "But hold on, if you could see me this morning, why didn't you tell me not to go in to work?"
"Crossing into established events is strictly forbidden. Except for cheap tricks," explained the Doctor.
"And that's your spaceship?" asked Martha about the TARDIS.
"She's called the TARDIS, the Doctor told me a few minutes ago," I told Martha.
"It stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space," added the Doctor.
Martha lightly touched the TARDIS. "Your spaceship's made out of wood. There's not much room. We'd be a bit intimate," she gave the Doctor a pointed look.
I could feel excitement bubbling up inside of me. She was going to be so shocked in a minute; I couldn't wait to see her reaction.
The Doctor pushed the door open. "Take a look."
I watched as Martha stepped inside, and took a good look at how big it was.
"Oh, no, no!" I heard her exclaim.
I smiled at her response; I suppose it is a bit of a surprise when you see the inside of the TARDIS this way. I did do it a bit backwards after all.
Once Martha was finished inspecting the entire outside of the TARDIS, she came back inside, the Doctor and I followed her.
"It's like a box with that room just rammed in. It's bigger on the inside," she said in amazement.
I noticed that the Doctor mouthed the last sentence that Martha said, and I fought back a snort.
"Is it, I hadn't noticed," said the Doctor sarcastically, as he threw his coat on a railing.
He went over to stand next to the console. "All right, then, let's get going."
"But is there a crew? Like a navigator and stuff? Where is everyone?" questioned Martha.
"Just me," he replied.
"All on your own?"
"Well, sometimes I have guests. I mean some friends, traveling alongside. I had- there was recently a friend of mine. Rose, her name was Rose. And…we were together. Anyway," the Doctor rambled.
He must have had feeling for her, I realized. Suddenly, I wanted to know more about this Rose girl. She must be special, to capture the Doctor's attention.
"Where is she now?" asked Martha.
"With her family. Happy. She's fine. Not that you're replacing her," he quickly told Martha.
I had a suspicion that there was more to the story than that.
"I'd never said that I was," she responded.
"Just one trip to say 'thanks', you get one trip, then back home."
I briefly wondered why the Doctor was letting me stay on full time, and then I remembered that I almost died, he was going to help me figure out what I am.
Martha stated. "You're one that kissed me."
"That was a genetic transfer."
"Is that what they're calling it, these days," I teased.
The Doctor glared at me. "Alix, don't."
Ooh, he used my full name. I must be in trouble, now!
Martha continued on. "And if you wear a tight suit…"
"Now…don't!"
"And then travel all the way across the universe just to ask me on a date…"
"Stop it."
"For the record? I'm not remotely interested. I only go for humans," Martha finished.
"Yeah, me too!" I interjected.
I must have imagined this, because I'm pretty sure that the Doctor had a look of disappointment on his face, but it was gone in an instant.
"Good." The Doctor started to push some buttons on the console. "Well, then. Close down gravitic anomalizer. Fire up the helmic regulator. And finally the hand brake. Ready?"
"No," said Martha.
I grinned. "I am."
The Doctor returned my grin. "Off we go!"
He pulls the hand brake, and then the TARDIS starts to shake uncontrollably. The three of us tightly hold on to the console for dear life.
"Blimey, it's a bit bumpy," commented Martha.
The Doctor reaches over the console to shake both our hands. "Welcome aboard! Miss Jones and Miss Carter."
"It's our pleasure, Mr. Smith." Martha and I both say at the same time.
I may not know what I am exactly, but I'm excited to be traveling throughout space and time with some new friends.
AN: I'm glad everyone seems to be enjoying Ali! Martha will have a slight crush on the Doctor for the first part of the story. However, towards the end of this story she will be one of the biggest Doctor/Ali shippers. She will see it before they do. Right now, Ali is not jealous of Rose, but when she realizes that she might have feelings for the Doctor, she will feel slightly insecure. Please, review!