Chapter 10

It was a strangely warm Friday, the weird guy had been sitting in a different table every day for the past week. I'd tried to question him several times but he'd always been really awkward and rushed off as quickly as he could. I don't know why I bothered so much, I didn't really care if he liked me. He wasn't really my type. My type being assholes. I need a new type. Abigail tried to set me up with her friend but he was so boring, talking about his "fascinating" work with frogs.

Adrian, Abigail and I had come up with several theories as to why. Mine included crazy stalker guy, homeless crazy guy (even though he seemed too well dressed and clean to be homeless) and he wasn't particularly crazy in the stereotypical raving lunatic type way. Abigail just thought he had a crush on me and was just too shy to say anything. Adrian thought the same, but didn't say it as much, and he also thought that he could be from something called UNIT, an organisation which apparently would take me in for questioning if they found out I was from a different time so I should avoid them.

Abigail had headed home, saying she was going on a date and needed to do her hair. I flitted around, humming to myself, giving the tables a clean. I was so glad it was the weekend finally. Now I could really go and explore London properly.
I walked over to the man's table. My sleeves were rolled up because it was so warm. As I reached across for his cup the man looked up at me then grabbed my wrist. I jumped and gave a little scream. It wasn't painful, he just scared me.

"What are you doing?!" I demanded.

"Where did you get this?" The man said.

"What?"

He turned my hand over carefully. "This."

My wristband. I'd completely forgotten about it.

"I was given it. I thought everyone had one."

"Not here, they don't." He looked at me closely, his blue eyes scanning my face.

"Can you let go of me now, please?" I said impatiently.

"Oh, right. Sorry." He said apologetically and quickly released his hold on my wrist.

I pulled up a chair opposite him and sat down.

"Why did you keep coming back?" I said instantly.

"I'm not sure. You are a mystery to me, I need to find out more so I came back but couldn't find the right time." The man said, sighing. "What's your name?" He asked.

"Frankie."

He nodded and seemed less awkward now, more relaxed now that we had been sort of introduced.

"What about you?"

"I'm the Doctor. I'm an alien from the planet Gallifrey, I travel through time a lot." He said, with the tone of somebody who had said it a million times before and been bored by peoples' reactions and questions so I decided to say nothing; only nod as he had done when he found out my name. He looked surprised. I tried to hide a smirk.

After a couple of minutes, the man reached inside his coat and pulled out a weird metal stick thing.

"What the hell is that?"
"Sonic screwdriver. Hold still a second." He pressed a button and it made a whirring, whiny noise and the light on the end turned green. He held it up to my eyes. I blinked and stared at it while the Doctor moved it around a little, looking at my eyes closely.
"What colour are your eyes?" He asked.

What a weird question, he could see my eyes so why was he asking?

"Blue, with green in the middle." I said. That was the colour I saw every day in the mirror after all.

"Not at the minute, they're not." The Doctor said quietly. He looked at his sonic screwdriver and muttered, "Black. Hostile..."

"Hostile?" I raised an eyebrow. I wasn't feeling particularly hostile. I pulled out my phone and looked at my eyes in the reflective screen. I jumped whenever I saw two ebony eyes staring back at me. What the...?

"What are you doing here? You don't seem intent on killing anyone, at least not yet. Then why wait all this time, waiting for me were you? Well, I'm very flattered, it's just-"

Okay, this idiot was definitely not from UNIT. I was safe, as far as I could tell.

"Wait a second." I put my finger to his lips to shush him. He almost went cross-eyed, looking at my finger in surprise.

"I'm not going to kill anyone. I'm here because I work here. I moved here from New York, 2579. I travelled here through a time portal my friend built." I said, quickly and quietly.

The Doctor was silent for a second.

Then he said, "But how did you survive going through a time portal? You weren't wearing a protective suit, were you?"

I shook my head.

"You should've burned up in the fabric of space and time, you should've suffocated, been crushed by the pressure... Why not?"

"Why the hell are you asking me? I have no clue, I'm just a human!"

"But you're not, at least not fully."

I spluttered, "What?!"

"It says here," he showed me the side of the sonic screwdriver which had a small screen on it. "50% Human and 50% Other. Give or take a few percent."

My first thought was that this was some sort of prank; a trick. But he looked so sincere, and I couldn't help but think that everything he'd told me in the past few minutes was all true.