Writer's Notes: I wrote this story a little while ago, late at night, when I was in a less than good place. It's not the sort of thing I'm intending to write regularly but I actually quite like it and reckon it has a use. I'm posting it because I thought some of it might resonate with anyone else feeling similar things, and because I think it shows just how much Doctor Who and stories generally mean to me, and to a lot of people. The Doctor is my hero and that's because I can imagine him like this.
I can never work out if darkness is a friend or an enemy. If it's hiding us to keep us safe or hiding the world from us to keep us alone. Sat on the ground, back to the wall, hair dripping wet from the rain, I'm sure I'm a pretty sad sight for any passer-by. In the darkness, there's a flash of colour though - a bright blue bowtie.
"Hello!" A voice calls out with the enthusiasm of a child. I smile on instinct. I have to keep the facade up. The kind man with the old eyes, in a tweed jacket with a bowtie, and long floppy hair, slides down to the floor next to me without invitation and returns the smile. "Jammy dodger?" I register him asking, holding out an open packet but I decline. I'm not hungry.
"Long day, huh?" The stranger asks and I nod. It's always a long day. At this point, it's more like a long life. And yet, I'm barely 20. "Tell me about it," he smiles and I realise I must have said that out loud. Unless he can read minds. He straightens his bow tie with a knowing smirk. "Mind you, I'm a little bit older than that."
He tells me he's over 1000 years old and I believe him, even though he doesn't look it. It's the eyes that give him away. "Might even be older," he mutters to himself and the illusion of a child is shattered for just a moment, "I lie sometimes. And then I forget. I lose track. 1000 years of lies and you start to become the lie." He turns to me with the most serious expression in the world and his voice sounds as cold as ice: "don't ever become me."
He looks like he wants to use my name but he doesn't know it, and I have no desire to tell him. "How come you live so long?" I ask him, breaking the silence. "I'm lucky," he grins as though he's telling the funniest joke in the world. "Is that really the right word?" I wonder. "Some days," he answers.
"You see," he starts and I can see a lot of words readying to fly from his lips, "it's like this. I came here trying to find a bookshop. Ended up in someone's garden, and that someone turned out to be an alien, a Slitheen to be precise, and that Slitheen turned out to have dark sinister plans so dark and sinister that even he didn't know them. And then I stopped him because he's a Slitheen up to no good so I felt I probably should, but he managed to drain the TARDIS' power first, so I'm stuck here while it recharges."
"Is there a point to this?" I interrupt. "Yes," he answers confidently, "the point is that I like talking. But here's the other point: on the one hand, that Slitheen murdered someone and stole their life, living in their skin and that is horrific. That is the kind of thing that makes you want to leave this universe behind and go sulk at the end of time. But on the other hand, it couldn't stop farting the whole time we were facing off, its plan for world domination was so vague and yet convoluted that even he couldn't understand it, and I stopped him while wearing a bowtie and using nothing but a blank piece of paper, a screwdriver I've inexplicably made sonic, and overconfidence. And you can't help laughing at that."
He took a deep breath as if searching for the right words then looked me right in the eye. "Everyone's always very honest about there being good days and bad days. Nobody ever tells you they happen at the same time."
"It's raining," I said, acknowledging the soft pitter pattern of rainfall on our heads for the first time. "Yes, it is rather, isn't it," the stranger concurred. "Why sit out here with me then?" I asked. "How honest do you want me to be?" I answer his question with a look and he shrugs. "You looked lonely."
"I suppose I am," I admitted for maybe the first time ever. He looks at me with those sad old eyes and I wonder how many times he's admitted to feeling like this. He closes his eyes for a moment, like he's heard my thoughts, then they snap back open and he starts to speak again. "I have these friends," he straightens his bowtie again, but it seems like a sadder gesture this time, "Amy and Rory. Best friends you could ask for, and the best part is they don't have anyone else. That came out wrong, i don't mean they don't have anyone else, more that they don't need anyone else. They seem to be satisfied with just... Me."
His eyes glance down for a moment. "But you see I forget..." He lets his words linger in the air. "Forget what?" I ask, still hanging onto every word. "That they have each other as well. The Doctor, Amy and Rory are a team. But so are just Amy and Rory. They're actually married to each other, and that's a bit of their life I'm not part of. As much as they allow me to pretend otherwise. And it's so hard to keep your distance isn't it? You just want to run up to them every day and tell them everything and never let go. You know what I mean. I can see it in your eyes."
I wonder what my eyes look like to the stranger. I wonder if he can even see them in the dark. I wonder how much they betray me in every conversation. Maybe I'm not as good a liar as I think I am. Maybe nobody believes me when I tell them I'm alright. Part of me hopes they don't. "Who are your Amy and Rory?" He asks, cocking his head to the side. I wonder if I stay quiet long enough if he'll just start talking again. In my experience, people usually do. Except when they don't. Sometimes they prefer the silence. Regardless, nobody ever actually wants me to fill it. But maybe this stranger does?
"I guess there's..." I start to answer slowly buy I stop myself there. "Tell me about them," he pushes me on, his hand resting on my shoulder now. I don't know where to start. "I think they try to be kind," I settle on. "And I'm willing to forgive a lot for people who try." "So they need to be forgiven a lot then?" He asks and I realise that is what I've implied. "I don't know," I admit.
It's an answer he clearly doesn't understand. I don't blame him. I barely understand it myself. I'm not good at feelings. Not my own anyway. I can never work out whether I'm over-reacting or under-reacting, and whenever I take a risk and commit one way or the other it inevitably ends up wrong. He nods, beginning to understand, even though I have no idea if I'm saying this out loud anymore. The truth is, if I blame someone else then, no matter how justified I am, I just end up feeling guilty. It's much easier to blame myself. Because you can't feel guilty about feeling guilty. Except when you can.
"Is that why you do it?" He asks, and I realise he is looking at the cuts on my arms. The ones I did with a knife just before I stepped outside. It makes sense, I think, but I'm not sure. It's becoming clear that I'm not sure about anything. The stranger suddenly reaches into his inside pocket and pulls out a key, glowing a burning yellow and bringing more light to the darkness than I thought possible.
"The TARDIS is recharged and ready to go!" He announces it with the enthusiasm of a five year old on Christmas morning. "I need to go and you need to sleep." The sentence doesn't make sense to me but not much he's said really should have. I feel a twinge of sadness, thinking that the conversation has barely started. I want you to remember something from this though," he says, adjusting his bow tie, and pulling his jacket a little further onto his shoulders.
"Those friends you mentioned, you're annoyed with them, aren't you?" He's right. "Yet the reason why wasn't important enough to mention," he points out and my heart sinks. I am over reacting. He shakes his head. That's not what it tells us. It tells us that's not why I'm really annoyed. I think back through the things I've told the stranger in the dark.
I'm annoyed because I'm tired and I have been for a really long time now. I'm annoyed because I'm lonely. Because I feel different, left out, on the edge of my friends' lives not in the centre. I'm annoyed because they're leaving me. I haven't mentioned that but it's what I think. Just like the stranger in the bowtie, they've come with the promise of help, and now they're going away while I still need them. And I'm annoyed because I know I can't be annoyed at that. Because they have the right to go home, everybody does. Even me. But I've never been good at letting go.
The funny man in the bowtie leans towards me with that now-familiar smile. "The thing about letting go," he says to me quietly, "is that we're worried we'll fall. But you can't move forwards while you're still holding on. And if you do fall to the bottom, then there's no place to go but up. And I think, if you can climb past all this Chris, then you might actually be a person you could like one day. And wouldn't that be nice."
I don't tell him I feel like I've already hit the bottom. I feel like I'm barely one bad day away from repeating my father's mistakes. The smallest of pushes and I drive a knife into my own arm. What's to stop me from drinking the pain away and taking my sanity with it. What does he know anyway? He's not just a stupid old man with the face of a baby in ridiculous clothes. He's also a lie. He's not even real. Just a fairytale I tell myself to give me something to look up to. A kindness to aim for. The stranger laughs.
"Does it matter if I'm not real, if I'm right?" And I don't know so I stop writing and go to sleep.