This takes place after the Buffy season two finale which I've recently rewatched. That's how I've got this idea. For the Doctor this obviously takes place after the current era. If I decide to continue this project once I've got some ideas, I'll also go into detail why I chose to place the story within the Doctor Who continuity that I did. Enjoy.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters from that show belong to Mutant Enemy Productions, Sandollar Television, Kuzui Enterprises, and 20th Century Television and thusly the Walt Disney Company. All Doctor Who characters and properties belong to the BBC.
Buffy sat at the window and was slowly dozing off, trying desperately to stay awake. She was afraid that if she would fall asleep, she would dream of Angel, her mom, her friends, all what she was currently running away from. All the guilt she was connecting with her home she was desperately trying to leave behind. Right now she was heading towards Los Angeles, her old home, but she still had not made up her mind if she would stay there or not.
With every passing minute it became harder for her to stay awake. After she closed her eyes for just a few seconds, she was wide awake again when several other passengers suddenly started to scream and shout. It did not take long for Buffy to figure out why – instead of driving through the twilight lit California landscape, the bus was suddenly standing it what appeared to be a hanger or cargo bay area of some kind. And it was surrounded by people in black uniform with enormous helmets over their heads.
"Oh, no, not again," she heard a man say. His accent was unmistakenly British.
Buffy turned around, hoping to spot the man who just uttered that phrase. He was easy to spot – given that he appeared to be the only one on the bus besides her and those who were just waking up again due to the commotion who was not involved in causing said commotion. He was tall, ginger, thin, wore a long brown coat, a relatively ill-fitting grey three piece suit, black boots, a white button-down shirt with a collar that Buffy was certain had been out of fashion since the 70s, and a loosely tied red bow tie. The entire outfit appeared mismatched and somehow just right in a way that Buffy couldn't explain.
The man stood up, straightened his waistcoat, and then winked at Buffy, leaving her speechless. He was somewhere in his mid thirties and she had no idea why he would suddenly wink at her. Before she had any chance to really think about though the doors of the bus opened and two men in uniforms stepped in. They were saying something in a language that neither Buffy nor anybody else on the bus could understand.
Nobody but the red-headed man. He replied in the weird language making Buffy suspect that he might be a demon and these beings were as well. "And I find it rude that you kidnap all these people and then to not talk in a language they don't understand. The very least they deserve is an explanation," he suddenly said.
This resulted in one of the beings getting out some kind of gizmo the size of a pen. It pointed it at the man and it buzzed while a red light went off. Once it was finished, the thing put it into a port in its neck, followed by a robotic sounding voice announcing that the spoken language had been identified as "English" and "from Earth."
"We have no interest in these Earthlings," said the thing.
This resulted in the red-headed man raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Oh, really? Then why did you take a bus full of them?"
"Because you were on it."
"Ah," said the man. "So you covered this bus in portal energy to get my attention. I'm impressed. Especially since you seem to be from this universe, is that correct?"
"It is indeed, Time Lord."
"So, you know my species. How interesting," the man said, admitting that he was not human. But that was not the only thing that caught Buffy's attention. His demeanour had completely changed. From annoyed but somehow still acting and appearing carefree, scolding these beings on their manners, to withdrawn, more calculating, with a hint of darkness about him that Buffy had learned to spot very well in the last two years.
"What are they," asked an older lady all of the sudden with a very shaky voice.
"Judoon," answered the red-headed man calmly. "Who hired you?"
There were no answer from these Judoon as the man whom they had called a Time Lord – whatever that meant – had called them.
"Nevermind, I've already got a pretty good idea about that. Tell him I said hi but I'm not really interested in catching up, something along those lines." The way this Time Lord said it was laced with sarcasm, barely covering up the anger in his voice.
"You will come with us," said the Judoon leader.
"And what about them," asked the Time Lord, gesturing at the guests on the bus.
"We will send them back."
This seems to break the man's resolve. He nodded and slipped his hands into his pockets. He started to move towards the exit and Buffy had no idea why she did it but she suddenly stood up to say something. "Wait, you just kidnap us and then you send us back like it's nothing? Don't we even get something like an apology, or so?"
A small smirk appeared on the man's face. "I knew that it'd be you," he said calmly with a hint of pride. "And she's right. If the Shadow Proclamation in this universe is in anyway similar to that of mine, you can't just kidnap people form a level five civilisation and put them back. They're not supposed to know about the existence of alien life, after all, now do they?"
Alien life? So these were aliens, not demons? That was a new one for Buffy. The leader of the Judoon got out another gizmo, probably a communication device since he spoke into it in his alien tongue. "They'll be processed and their memories wiped."
"NO!," shouted a woman fearfully. "I don't want any aliens in my mind," she cried.
The Time Lord turned back around and went to her. He kneeled down in the aisle and asked her to look at him. "I'm the Doctor, and I'm promising you that nothing is going to happen to you. The Judoon might not be the brightest but they're the most by the rules people you'll ever meet. They won't do anything they aren't allowed to do."
This somehow calmed the woman down a bit and this Doctor turned to leave again. Just as he passed by Buffy he stopped again. "Make sure none of them does anything stupid," he said. There was something about his voice and the expression on his face that made Buffy feel trusted and as if she had been just put in a position of authority.
"Why me," she whispered, more to herself but the man must have heard her anyway.
"Because you're the only one level headed around here," he said a bit smugly.
Buffy blinked and before she had collected her thoughts again, the man was gone and several of the passengers looked at her, insecure and fearful. She swallowed. She had run away to get away from all the pressure of being the chosen one only to be once again being thrown into a position of authority that she was totally too young to be in.
The Doctor was being led through the corridors of the Judoon ship, hoping he had done the right thing by putting the responsibility for the safety of the bus's passengers into the hands of a teenager who was most likely no older than eighteen. Not just that – if his suspicion about Rassilon being behind this was correct, he needed to find a way off this ship and back down to Earth to his TARDIS as quickly as possible.
Taking in his surroundings, the Doctor quickly deduced the best way to get out of this situation was a distraction. The question was if he had to do that himself or if the Judoon's bureaucracy was going to do it for him indirectly.
"I say, what a lovely ship you've got here," the Doctor suddenly said and started to whistle.
Of course the humanoid rhinoceroses did not react to these comments. They never did. Too narrow minded in carrying out their duty. Douglas Adams never knew how correct he was in that aspect of how he viewed the intergalactic police force. Only that Judoon were definitely more appealing to look at than Vogons – and definitely would never attempt poetry. And somehow the Doctor knew that if they did, it would sound better than what good old Dougie had described Vogon one to be like.
This train of thoughts made the Doctor think about dropping in on Douglas once again. He had not seen the man in several regenerations. Before he could keep thinking about old acquaintances he might want to visit again, the Doctor was pushed through a door which immediately closed behind him. So much for coming up with an escape plan before coming face to face with one of his most dangerous enemies.
"Greetings, Doctor," said the old man sitting in the comfortable chair in the middle of the room.
The Doctor looked around. There was not much else in here besides several screens, he couldn't even make out any interface with which to control the screen – meaning that Rassilon must have had a personal device for that exact purpose on him. "This reminds me of something," the Doctor thought out loud but he could not put his fingers on it.
"I'm sure it does. Somebody who has travelled that far and wide as you," the founding father of the Time Lords said smugly. "I'd offer you a seat but as you see, there's none."
"You could always just stand up," replied the Doctor coldly.
Rassilon smirked. "And where would I sit? I'm older than you, Doctor."
"Really? I'm forgetting how old I am. Could have something to do with a certain somebody using the Matrix to constantly rewrite my history."
Rassilon's smirk became a full on arrogant smile. "And here I thought you and your friends had fixed all of that mess."
The Doctor was careful to not show any emotion with maybe the exception of disgust on his face. "You're pathetic," he finally said.
"Without me, you'd be nothing."
The Doctor snorted. "You were willing to kill all of our people in an attempt to save yourself, and you're still mad at the military giving you your comeuppance. Given your place in history, this is nothing but a childish temper tantrum."
"I didn't know you're the military now, Doctor."
"I didn't do anything. I just stood there. It was the soldiers that turned on you because they didn't want to fire upon an unarmed civilian."
Now it was Rassilon's time to snort. "Everybody knows that you're just as dangerous without a weapon as with one, maybe even more so."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
The conversation was interrupted when a Judoon appeared upon one of the screens and reported that the people were acting up after seeing the Judoon's actual heads. The Doctor rolled his eyes and even Rassilon was annoyed. "Of course they are, they've never seen aliens before!"
"Except this one," said the Judoon in his language and pulled the blonde girl from the bus into the frame. "She attacked one of our guards."
"And you didn't execute her," asked Rassilon.
"No clearance," said the Doctor, barely able to suppress a smile. "Or did you forget that this is a level five civilisation with no knowledge of extraterrestrial life? Your guns for hire are not allowed to use violence against them unless not absolutely necessary if they want to keep their contracts with the Shadow Proclamation."
"You assume a lot, Doctor," sneered Rassilon.
"He is correct," commented the Judoon leader upon that.
Now the Doctor couldn't help but put on a big goofy grin. "Come on, m'lord. This universe is a near perfect copy of our own. The only two things missing are us and the Daleks. Of course there'll be differences but you can relatively easily deduce what the similarities are."
This was partially true but also a big fat lie at the same time. The Doctor would not have been able to make this guess if he had not confronted the Judoons on the bus about the Shadow Proclamation earlier.
Rassilon was getting angry. "I doubt that girl could've done any damage. Process her and be done with it."
"She is strong. Too strong for a human," said the Judoon.
The Doctor's eyes went wide. He suddenly realised who the girl was – she was the Slayer. "What's your name," he asked her.
The girl took a second before answering, "Buffy."
"What are you," asked Rassilon, way colder than the Doctor.
"She is human according to all of our scans."
"You just said that she's too strong to be human!"
"But I am," chimed Buffy in, sounding a bit plucky.
Rassilon nearly rose from his seat in anger, and the Doctor knew that he had to act now. "Follow your destiny, Buffy."
Before the former Lord President of the Time Lords could do or say anything, Buffy managed to free herself from the grip of the Judoon holding her, kicking him in the stomach before grabbing the one Rassilon had been speaking to at the horns, making him scream in anger.
"She's just a girl!," shouted Rassilon and got up from his chair.
"Oh but she's not just any girl," said the Doctor who used this distraction to get out his sonic screwdriver which the Judoon had not taken from him. "She's the Slayer, and you should have told your mercenaries about this."
The Doctor used his screwdriver to overcharge Rassilon's personal control system and made a dash for the door before the crazed, power hungry former dictator could catch him. Once outside the room, he used his screwdriver to close the door behind him and to temporarily dead-lock it to stop Rassilon from following him. Then he used the next best interface he could find to locate Buffy and a transmat device down to Earth.
When the Doctor had finally managed to get close to Buffy's location, he heard the sound of fighting going on and shots being fired. "Damn," he muttered and tried to run even faster. To his surprise it was not just the Judoon who were firing. Buffy had gotten her hands on one of their weapons and figured out how to use it, even though her aim did leave things to be desired when compared to the highly trained Judoon soldiers.
"Hey you lot," shouted the Doctor and drew some attention away from Buffy who used this opportunity to change her position of cover and shot more or less blindly at the five Judoon who had her cornered – hitting one of them in the chest who fell over immediately.
"I hope that was on stun," said the Doctor to himself and just walked straight into the room with his hands in the air. "You know you can't really harm her without breaking protocol."
"She attacked us and was thusly found guilty of aggravated assault with a lethal weapon upon several Judoon officers. This crime is punishable by death. The Shadow Proclamation can not protect her."
Damn, thought the Doctor, he should have considered that. Not that it mattered because this little distraction was all Buffy needed. She did an amazing backward flip over the console she had been hiding behind and fired her gun mid turn, hitting one more of her attackers, reducing their number to three. When she landed she managed to hit one of the others just in time before he could hit her.
The Doctor himself used this to overcharge the lights of the room – blinding everyone in it including himself had he not gotten out his shades. He quickly grabbed Buffy and dragged her out of the room. "This way," he said and the two ran as quickly as they could towards one of the lifts.
"This is not the way back to the hanger or whatever," commented Buffy confused.
"I know. We're not going there."
"Why not?"
"Because it would put the others in danger. They'll be processed and simply send back to Earth. Us two, not so much."
"I get why they won't send me back since, well, I've overheard what they just said but why do they want you?"
"They were hired to capture me by somebody who wants to settle an old score," was all the Doctor offered as an explanation just as he had programmed a destination into the lift. "This way," he repeated himself and dragged Buffy off into an entirely different direction.
"Let me guess, a rouse."
"Totally. Now, Buffy, what's your full name?"
"Buffy Summers," answered Buffy after hesitating for a moment. "And yours?"
"I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor who?"
"Just the Doctor. Nice to meet you, Buffy."
Their conversation was cut short when the Judoon started to fire upon them. "Darn it, I hoped we'd reach the transmat before they found us."
"The what?"
"It's, ahm, like, what is it called, the things they use on this big science fiction show, Star Wars, no those were the films," rambled the Doctor as they were scrambling for cover.
"You mean Star Trek?"
"Yes, that's it!"
"You really are an alien, aren't you?"
The Doctor looked at her with an expression that simply asked her if she was serious as he worked on a panel to get up internal shields. It took him awhile but he managed to do it in the end – and just in time when the Judoon were seriously closing in on them.
"There's no escape for you, Doctor," shouted Rassilon who had gotten out of his room by now.
"We'll see about that," announced the Doctor determined. "Do you trust me," he asked Buffy with a lowered voice.
The Slayer hesitated to answer but then said, "yes," without even fully aware why she did so.
The Doctor smiled reassuringly and grabbed her gun before giving it back to her. "Just making sure that it's on stun," he said before he got up. "Behind this door is a transmat beam. Buffy and I will just pop right down onto the planet."
"We have cut the power to the transmat," stated one of the Judoon.
"Oh, is that so," asked the Doctor, internally cursing himself for not thinking of that possibility before.
"And we still got the bus," added Rassilon arrogantly.
"The bus is to be taken back to Earth," reminded him the Judoon commander.
Rassilon glared angrily at him while the Doctor lazily strolled over to the door to the transmat room. "Should've thought about this before hiring the Judoon to catch me – again. You comin'," he asked Buffy who followed him into the transmat room.
"I'll get you, Doctor. There's no way out!"
The Doctor rolled his eyes and shortened the energy connection to the door. "This will keep them busy for awhile."
"But the shields – ,"
"Rassilon is a genius. He'll have them down in no time," said the Doctor as he started to work on re-routing the energy to the transmat.
"Who even is this Rassilon?"
"The founding father of the Time Lord society, later turned dictator."
"Wait a minute, you're a Time Lord, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"Are you some kind of fugitive?"
The Doctor sighed and started to dart around the room, trying to get the transmat juiced up as quickly as possible. "Kinda, sorta, not really, not anymore. Rassilon, though, well, he had gone missing in a parallel universe, everybody assumed he was dead. Then, one day, he came back, mind-warped, not longer sane, if he ever was in the first place that is but that doesn't really matter. Later he orchestrated a coup against the then ruling Lady President and assumed rule over Gallifrey again in the middle of the Last Great Time War. He nearly led our people to destruction, and after the war was over he got overthrown by the military and banished form Gallifrey."
"What does this have to do with you though?"
The Doctor didn't answer this question – at least not right away. "No more time to lose," he said instead as they heard the Judoon trying to break open the door. "Let's just hope this works," he said as he pulled Buffy with him onto the transmat platform.
A second or so later, the two appeared on another such platform, surprising the guard in position. Buffy reacted quickly and shot him before he could even get his own weapon out. "You learn quickly", the Doctor commented matter of factly. He was never that impressed with people learning to shoot guns or gun-like weapons.
"We should hurry, shouldn't we?"
"Nah, I erased the transmat log. They won't know where we are for a couple more minutes," assured the Doctor as he slowly walked over to the control panel and punched in the round-about coordinates of the bus station he had parked his TARDIS close by. "At least we'll hit the right town," he muttered.
Just as the Doctor got back onto the platform, the door opened. "That wasn't minutes," Buffy pointed out, readying herself to shoot her weapon again but the Doctor was faster. He used his screwdriver to activate the transmat and the two disappeared mere seconds before the blast of the laser guns rushed through the space they had just stood.
"That was close," commented the Doctor dryly as they suddenly stood in an ally way.
"Where are we," asked Buffy as she followed the Doctor onto the main street.
"In the charming village of Falmeny, California. I got onto the bus from here," answered the Doctor as he walked along the street.
"The bus. All my stuff – "
"We'll worry about that one later. First we've got to get away from here before Rassilon finds us again."
Buffy wanted to protest but refrained from doing so. Instead he followed the Doctor as he quickly stalked through the streets until they reached what looked like a park – which Buffy recognised. "There's the bus station."
The Doctor nodded, took a look around and then walked straight into the bushes behind a public restroom. Buffy did not follow him at first, resulting in him coming back out again. "You can of course stay around here and just wait until Rassilon managed to find some kind of loophole allowing the Judoon to come to Earth and collect you. Probably not that hard, considering that you're now a wanted criminal by galactic standards."
The mention of being a wanted criminal reminded Buffy of Kendra and her being the prime suspect for her death by the police. And the sudden flash of insecurity and fear on her face made the Doctor realise that she was on the run. "Why are you running, Buffy?"
"What," asked the confused Slayer.
"How old are you? Seventeen, eighteen," asked the Doctor sombre.
Buffy swallow down an imaginary clot in her throat before answering with "seventeen."
"Something happened, didn't it? Something to do with you being the Slayer?"
Buffy nodded slowly, feeling tears forming in her eyes. "People died, my friends got hurt, and my mom threw me out."
It was clearly a very abridged version without any details, which the Doctor was certain Buffy was not yet willing to disclose to anyone. "Then I better not bring you back home for now," he said. "Anywhere else you want to go?"
"I don't know. Just, away," replied Buffy with a very small voice.
"I'd offer you to come with me but the world needs the Slayer."
"There's probably already another one."
This made the Doctor frown. "It might have been some time since I encountered the Slayer prophecy but if I remembered it correctly, it clearly stated that there was always just one."
"I died. Last year. Got revived but another Slayer got called."
The Doctor was about to ask what happened but decided that Buffy was not ready to reveal such information to him. What he did manage to deduce from this little exchange though was that this Slayer who had been called after Buffy's death had recently died – and that Buffy assumed that another one had already been called forth to replace her. "In that case, come on," he said and gently took Buffy's hand, pulling her into the bushes.
Buffy frowned when she came face to face with a blue box that had police written on it and was definitely not big enough for two people. The Doctor opened it and signalled her to get inside. Unwilling to protest right now, Buffy did step inside and found her jaw dropping to the floor.
Inside the blue box was a big round room that was lit in a white-blue light, the floor itself giving of a slightly green glow. The first thing that one noticed after getting over the shock of just having entered a room that was at least twenty times bigger than it should be was the central hexagon control panel which stood on top of a gallery framed by a low metal railing. The gallery itself appeared to nearly float in the middle of the room, supported only by the ramp leading up to it from the entrance and two parallel spiral staircases leading underneath it.
Both behind the control platform and to its left were doors leading even further into the interior of this technological marvel. The walls were covered in round form that appeared to be the lights to the room and on the right side stood a comfortable red leather armchair next to an old grandfather clock. Above it all was a second gallery that was covered nearly completely with bookshelves and looked like it was made out of wood, accessible by two opposing staircases next to the entrance that Buffy had not even noticed at first.
"Any comments," asked the Doctor as he entered and hang his coat on a coat rack next to the entrance after closing the doors which still looked like those of the blue box from the outside.
"It's bigger on the inside," was all Buffy could say.
The Doctor smirked. "Is it? Haven't noticed," he joked and walked up to the control panel. "Better get this thing moving before Rassilon shows up. If I were you, I'd hold onto something, this is going to be a bumpy ride."
Immediately Buffy reached for the banister next to her and held on tight as she saw the Doctor work the controls. A glass column started to move in the middle of the console and a weird, indescribable sound was heard. The TARDIS, or as Buffy called it in her mind – the ship – was starting to shake. "Come on, old girl," encouraged the Doctor his oldest companion.
The time capsule groaned under the pressure of trying to escape one universe and entering another without getting sucked into the void in-between, but in the end she succeeded. "Good job," the Doctor complimented and patted the control panel before turning around to Buffy who looked a bit green. "Welcome to another universe, Ms. Summers."
"What do you mean, other universe?"
"Well, I had to make sure that Rassilon thinks we're gone, so I took the TARDIS back to my universe, a parallel version of your own with some minor and some major differences," the Doctor explained. "After refuelling I can take you right back, if you like, but better not to the same spacial or even temporal coordinates."
Buffy's head was spinning she had just crossed over into another universe, on board of a spaceship, with a man she had just met after being kidnapped by aliens, and now this man – the Doctor – was talking about things like spacial and temporal coordinates, whatever that meant. "What does that even mean? And what's the TARDIS?"
"This is the TARDIS. It's an acronym for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. This one is the oldest TARDIS still in use and the best ship ever built," the Doctor announced proudly.
"Okay," said Buffy slowly, still trying to make sense of everything. "And what do you mean with spacial and temporal coordinates?"
"I mean that I better not drop you off in Falmeny or at the same day or so. Better somewhere else, maybe even Los Angeles, a couple of weeks later."
"A couple of weeks," shrieked Buffy. "I thought you said you only needed to refuel this thing!"
The Doctor suddenly became very serious. "This 'thing' is a highly sophisticated time machine and space ship that has travelled to the furthest corners of the time-space continuum of this universe, took me to several parallel ones, and even managed to survive the void between the universe which a Type 40 like this should never be able to endure," he lectured her. "Refuelling her is only going to take a couple of hours. Once that is done, I'll take you back to your own universe, but if I'd drop you off where we just left, Rassilon will be waiting. But neither he nor the Judoon will stay around forever, I hope that is not a concept too complicated for your tiny human mind."
Buffy had never been insulted for simply being human and her demeanour suddenly changed. "Listen, Doc, I – "
"Doctor."
"What?"
"I'm the Doctor, not Doc. Never call me Doc," he said before turning his attention back to the console. "Best not shock you too much with any alien planets or different time zones. Let's just hope we can avoid meeting Jack. Have you ever been to Cardiff?" Before Buffy could even answer the TARDIS made is signature sound again, signalling that they were moving towards a target in time and space.