Kat smiled at the front of her door as she let herself into the bottom duplex. The new placard had extra space at the bottom for her new flatmate, but for now, it only listed her own last name. She missed Sophie but was glad that she and Craig had finally seen the light and gotten together. Kat could only take so much of their mutual pining, and each other's painful obliviousness to it.
The apartment felt larger without all of Sophie's belongings or the sounds of another person, but the spaciousness wasn't necessarily unwelcome. Kat toed off her shoes and sat down on the firm sofa with a sigh. She loved her job at Wanderlust, but this project was taking extra hours and it left her feeling tired. A loud thudding sound from upstairs drew her eyes briefly to the ceiling. She'd never seen her upstairs neighbor before, but sometimes – usually late in the evening – she would hear them come in, head up the stairs, and walk around a bit.
Thinking of her neighbor reminded her, again, of the freed-up room down the short hall from hers. Kat could afford to keep the space to herself, but she couldn't see the point in a second bedroom when her own was perfectly fine. Besides, what she saved on splitting the rent was most of what went into her savings, and she still had entire continents to cross off of her bucket list. Sophie had offered to put up a month's rent while Kat found a new roommate, but Kat turned it down.
The woman took a few minutes to herself, relaxing and decompressing on her sofa, before getting up to tackle the last of her to-do list. She heated up some take-out in a frying pan while sweeping and vacuuming, then ate while flipping between her favorite travel blogs. After that, she took out a pen and a notebook and started drafting an advertisement. She was reluctant to let a stranger move in, but the fact was that the only person she knew who might take her up on it was Melina. Melina was best in small doses.
Kat settled on specifying the rent, amenities, and restrictions on pets and smoking before adding in her phone and email. It seemed short, but Kat herself didn't mind a little flexibility. Her roommate's gender didn't particularly matter to her because they had separate bedrooms (and Kat took regular jiu-jitsu classes), and so long as they respected her space and property, she didn't mind a college student or a retiree. Though not a complete social butterfly, she believed friends could be made anywhere. Once she cleaned it up a bit, she decided it was good enough to print.
Amy may have a fourteen-year-long pass to take shots at his driving, but he was certain he was qualified to determine whether or not they were on an alien planet or not. The Doctor stuck his head out of the open TARDIS door and gazed across a grassy lawn. They were in a little neighborhood with a handful of shops up the street and brick townhomes on either side. The English signs and the earthy smell of the soil and air gave him a good guess about the planet and the certainty that they weren't on the isolated, ice-cored moon he had been aiming for.
"No, Amy," he called over his shoulder, peeking both ways to see if anyone had noticed. As usual, no one was looking at the apparent phone box. "It's definitely not the fifth moon of Cindi-Colesta."
"Are you sure?" His companion asked from inside, both skeptical and disappointed. The human loved seeing new planets, despite her poor first experience on Alfalva-Metraxis. "Could just be you've got it confused?"
Impatiently, the Doctor put a hand out the door to gesture. "I think I can see a Ryman's!"
He started turning his head to look at Amy where the redhead was beside the console, but a flash of heat slammed into his back and the force of a wave knocked him forward off his balance. The closed door that he had been holding onto with his other hand flung open while it felt like the gravity under his feet tilted, throwing him sprawling onto the grass in minor need of a mow.
"Amy!" He gasped as he rolled. His momentum landed him on his back. The Time Lord sat up as quickly as he could, bending his knees to get up, but the TARDIS doors slammed shut before he was even on his feet. "Amy!"
"Doctor?!" Amy's voice was faint from inside, sounding rattled, like she was trying to shout while being shaken. "It's saying we're on Earth. Essex, Colchester." He pushed at the doors and then gave them a pull for the sake of trying, but his ship had firmly glued them shut. "Doctor?" Amy yelled louder, starting to sound anxious.
"I'm here!" He called, laying his hands flat on the doors and trying to push again. That was when he heard the wheezing of the time rotor and felt the solidity of the doors begin to dematerialize under his palms.
"Doctor, it's taking off again!" Amy screamed, her voice closer as if she had run to the door. "Doctor, can you hear me?"
He could, but the TARDIS was growing fainter with every cycle and her voice becoming harder to hear. "Amy!" He yelled for her. His hands pushed through the air as the TARDIS left its spot, and he pulled back quickly for when it reappeared – but his ship was dematerializing, already more elsewhere than there. "Amy," he said worriedly, taking a step back from the space as the outline of his ship faded from view for the last time.
A Time Lord without a TARDIS remained a Time Lord, but as the very last of the Time Lords, his TARDIS was his longest and closest companion and the last remnant of his home. The old girl was so much more than just a ship to him, but something had gone wrong – she often made her displeasure known when at an unstable or threatening location, but never had she kicked him out before leaving. He trusted his vessel enough to think before reacting brashly. She always took him where he needed to be, and he needed to be on Earth, in Colchester, Essex… in the same place she couldn't stabilize.
The odds of that being a coincidence were cosmically laughable. The Doctor pushed his hands into the deep pockets of his trousers while he looked up and down the road. It was a regular residential street. A sign at the closest intersection called it Aickman Road.
"Alright," he murmured, unpocketing his hands to straighten his bowtie. Best foot forward, make a good impression, look the part of the clever problem solver who could be trusted with worries and rumors. "Let's see what you've got for me this time."
Pushing down his concerns for Amy's safety, the Doctor set off towards the Ryman's to have a look around the neighborhood for anything out of the ordinary.
Though Sophie moved out quickly once she and Craig decided to make a real go of it, she made certain Kat knew that she wasn't being just dropped in favor of a man. Sophie came over after leaving the call center with a bottle of cider in tow. Sophie had a little Sedan, but it was big enough to fit the very last of her boxes with a little bit of Tetris. The women made the boxes fit, then went inside to do another sweep for any errant possessions before popping the cider and pouring it into their fanciest glasses.
"We never did divide the kitchenware," Kat realized when she couldn't remember which of them had bought the little champagne glasses.
Sophie waved her hand after sipping at her drink. She was sitting on the horrendous armchair. The fabric made Kat want to be blind, but it was the comfiest piece of furniture they had. "Nah, it's not a big deal," she assured, probably just not wanting to bother with the hassle of moving even more things. "Craig's fully stocked, we don't need it."
"Nah, you're just gonna need a special sock for the door," Kat teased, making Sophie blush.
The blonde looked around quickly to find something to use as a distraction. She found one by pointing up at the ceiling to an increasingly discolored patch. "What's that on the ceiling? Up there?"
Kat followed her eyes and sighed. She'd noticed it a couple days ago, but it seemed like it had gotten significantly bigger since then. Damage that aggressive would have to be taken care of quickly.
"Was it there before?" Sophie asked curiously, sounding confused as to how she could have missed it.
"Yeah, saw it before work one morning. I think it's gotten bigger, though… I'll call someone. Maybe the landlord, it looks like water damage." It looked like the ceiling was just darker than its usual color, which made her think it could be wet. She'd rather a water spot than something like black mold.
"From upstairs?" Sophie pursed her lips. "Do you think we ought to go check on the poor old man?"
Always neighborly, Sophie had wanted to make friendly with the man upstairs since they had moved in, but he had made it very clear that he wasn't interested in building a relationship. The time they introduced themselves, he hadn't even allowed them to clearly see his face when he cracked open the door. Since then, Kat and Sophie had both left well enough alone.
That in mind, Kat figured he wouldn't appreciate them trying to check in on him, even with good intentions. "It's not like he slipped and left the shower running for days," Kat pointed out. Even if he was at fault for the damage, that was up to the landlord to deal with. She wasn't going to confront someone who wasn't in need of help. "I just heard him this morning; woke me up a few minutes, always dropping things."
Sophie made a face and shook her head vehemently. "Oh, I'm not going to miss that!"
"You shouldn't be missing any of this, Sophie, you've got a boyfriend to go home to now!" Kat encouraged brightly. She wasn't jealous of Sophie, exactly, for having Craig, but she was looking forward to the day that she herself got to go home to someone who made her smile. "Ah, like sleepovers with your best friend every night… also, sex."
"Kathleen!" Sophie gasped, blushing again and tossing a stray tube of lip gloss at her former roommate.
Kat just laughed, letting the tube hit her shoulder and fall to the couch. "Not like your mind hasn't gone there," she challenged Sophie to say otherwise.
"My mind, maybe, but at least not my mouth!"
This just made Kat laugh harder. Sophie wasn't what Kat would call a prude, but she was modest. It was easy for Kat to make her blush, and when it came to Craig, the brunette had been shamelessly making her blush every chance she got. Even now that the match had been made, it seemed there was plenty of good fun left to be had.
Sophie finished her cider. Kat still had a half glass – she didn't like it very much. "So what're you doing tonight?" The blonde asked, turning her knees as if preparing to lift and fold her legs underneath herself. She only stopped because she was still wearing her shoes and couldn't stay long enough to bother taking them off. "I'm officially all moved out. First time with the place to yourself, ta?"
"Nothing special," Kat answered, almost disappointedly. It would've been nice to enjoy the privacy as much as possible. "You know I've finally convinced Cass to let me put together that destination package in Africa. I've got to make it a hit if I ever want a project like this again."
Sophie shook her head while letting out a brief, disapproving huff. "It's like you're married to that job, honestly."
"When you love what you do, you never work a day," Kat repeated the phrase lightly.
"I don't think you love what you do," Sophie argued, her eyes big with concern and completely serious. "I think you love what you help others do."
Kat paused for a second, unable to disagree. Wanderlust was a great job because she got to take her passion for adventure to work, but it was also hard to make all these plans and never take advantage of them herself. One day she was going to go do it all herself; one day, when she could afford it, and fingers crossed, when she had found her soulmate to experience the adventures with.
"For now, I'm living vicariously," Kat admitted, looking down to her knees with a shrug. "It's not forever," she promised, looking up again.
"It best not be," Sophie gently ordered. "You deserve to see the world, not just package it up for others." Kat nodded halfheartedly. It wasn't so much that she felt she deserved it as it was that Kat couldn't bear the idea of staying put. It had taken all her willpower to make the conscious decision to stay put for even just the couple of years that she had been settled in Essex. Sophie seemed to realize that Kat didn't need any reminders, and she changed the subject again kindly. "You put the advert up yet?"
"This morning," Kat nodded, thinking back to the tiny news office and the few stores she'd been allowed to hang her flyers at. "I'm hoping to get a couple responses by the end of the weekend."
"Maybe you'll find your monkey!" Her friend suggested hopefully, her eyes softening and taking on a dreamy, loving look as she thought of Craig.
The pair had met almost three years ago and found out quickly that their soulmark was the word monkeys. They became the closest of friends, truly demonstrating how platonic soulmates belonged together. Only problem was, it was obvious to everyone but them that they had romantic feelings for each other, and it took ages for them to admit it to themselves and the other out of fear that one-sided love would ruin their treasured friendship. The catalyst for Craig telling Sophie he loved her was Sophie deciding she couldn't wait for him anymore and planning a long trip to volunteer with endangered monkeys. Since Craig's admission, they had mutually agreed that adventures, and attempts at long distance, could wait until they had made a stable home together.
Kat would love nothing more than to find her own monkey, so to speak, but she doubted it was in the cards. Where most people bore a soulmark, a word which somehow resonated with both soulmates, Kat had a strange drawing instead. The large circle was filled in with dots, lines, and uniform circles and half-circles in an intricate but meaningless design. Kat had gone as far as to hire investigators and visit linguistics professors to find what bizarre language her mark was in, but she'd never had any luck. Sometimes she couldn't help but worry that her soulmark was completely defective because she had no match.
In truth, she attributed her nomadic spirit to her mark. She loved experiencing a place, but after a little while, it felt like a well had run dry. She had looked for something, but failed to find it, and it was time to try somewhere else. The adventurer in her thrived on all of her new experiences, so her trips were never disappointments… but she wondered if maybe, deep in her soul, the reason she could never settle was because she was doomed to keep searching for a soulmate she would never be able to find.
Her throat felt like it had gone dry, so she finished the cider in her glass. Sophie's phone began to chime, but Kat spoke quietly over it, saying, "I'll settle for someone tidy and polite."
Sophie cast her a sympathetic and almost apologetic look. Kat kept her soulmark covered up to avoid the pitying looks and uncomfortable questions, but since they had lived together, it had been inevitable that Sophie would see eventually. Her ex-roommate checked the caller ID and bit her lip, making a frustrated face.
"Oh, it's Melina again," Sophie shared, looking up at Kat. "We weren't even done with our Claire crisis yet – this is going to be a bad one." The phone started to ring a third time and Sophie stood up, putting her glass down on the table between the chair and the couch.
Kat also rose to her feet, quickly saying goodbye. Sophie had other friends and they knew from experience that Melina was twice as bad when her calls weren't answered the first time. "Don't let me hold you up, but if you want a bailout, call me and I'll start bawling," she offered with emphasis. "I'm talking hoarse-voiced wails, wet sobs, the whole nine."
The two women gave each other a quick hug before Sophie all but ran for the door to get out of the apartment before answering her phone at the last minute. Kat watched her go, part of her head still thinking wistfully about her possibly-nonexistent soulmate.
Shaking her head, Kat picked up Sophie's glass and walked both to the kitchen for a wash before loading them in the dishwasher. Sophie wanted Kat to keep her spirits up, but the truth was, Kat was almost thirty and increasingly pessimistic about it. Most people would have met their soulmate already, and those that hadn't at least had soulmarks that made sense in some language or culture.
Kat had barely sat back down when there was a loud knock from the outside of the house. She stood back up and grabbed her keys from the island as she passed. Melina must have been snappy for Sophie to get off the phone with her so quickly, but if she was coming back, Kat was happy to go through with their original plan of going for a late dinner.
She brought the door to her apartment swinging shut lightly behind her and strode to the front door, which opened into a small entry space with her door and the stairs to the second story. Quickly twisting the lock, she started to talk as she pulled it open. "That was – you're not Sophie."
Standing on the doorstep was a young man in a tweed coat and bowtie, looking wildly out of place on Aickman Road. His brown hair was shiny and the long strands were combed back to reach his collar behind his neck, and tucked behind his ear, which made the Bluetooth piece in his ear particularly noticeable. What really struck her about him was his face, with intelligent green eyes and an excited, friendly smile.
"That is correct!" He exclaimed, seeming thrilled that she could tell the difference between him and Sophie. "I'm your new lodger."
She raised her eyebrows at the presumption. Her hope of responses by the weekend had been optimistic; having one show up at her door mere hours later was just ridiculous. "Even if you did see the posting already, how did you find the address?" She hadn't put where she lived in the news, especially since, in the context, any creep could infer she lived alone.
"I'm wonderful at finding things," he said by way of explanation, making big, innocent eyes at her and shoving his hand deeply into a trouser pocket. He pulled it out with a Duracell. "Did you lose a battery? I'm always finding those." He held it out to her quickly and, bewildered, Kat just accepted it. "And don't worry, I don't smoke!" The man plucked her keys from beside the battery.
"Why would that be my-" She started to ask before realizing she was stuck on the battery. "Give me back my keys!"
He stopped and blinked at her, looking confused for all of a second. She almost scoffed, but the understanding that lit his eyes made her think he had gotten what he did wrong. "Right! Quite right," he agreed. "Have some rent."
Instead of handing back her keys, the bowtie boy put his other hand in his pocket and took out a paper bag with the top folded down. It looked hefty, and now that it was out of his pocket, Kat could hardly believe it had even fit. She wouldn't have, if she hadn't seen it herself. He shoved it at her and, like with the battery, Kat was so taken aback that she just took it compliantly.
"That's probably quite a lot, isn't it?" He went on, gesturing at the bag for her to open it. Warily, she balanced the bottom in her palm (on top of the loose battery) and unfolded the top. Kat's eyes widened at the stacks of bills inside. "Looks like a lot," he remarked, but then asked, "Is it a lot? I can never tell."
Without invitation, he stepped forward. Kat's mind was jumping between nerves that a lunatic found her address and suspicion that a drug dealer wanted to move in with her. How did she say no to that without getting shot in the streets for it? Were drug dealers reasonable about that? Maybe she should've offered the room to Melina after all. She was processing so far behind the events that Kat just stepped back to maintain space between them. The guy took it as an offer into the house and pushed his way through the doorframe at her side.
"Don't spend it all on sweets," he instructed her, but then changed his mind quickly while scanning the entryway. His eyes lingered on the flickering light on the upstairs landing, but then he looked back at her. "Unless you like sweets. I like sweets. Oh, yes!"
As if he had forgotten, he perked up, grabbed her elbows, and leaned towards her. Kat leaned back and away, which didn't deter him in the slightest as he made a kissing sound in the air at the left side of her face. He then did the same thing on her right side while she glared at him, disgruntled.
"Are you on something?" She asked bluntly.
In response, he thought about it for a second and bounced on his heels. The floor made a tiny protest. "Just a squeaky floorboard," he assured her. He wasn't slurring his words and he seemed coordinated enough. "Think how many batteries could've been hidden under there, eh?" He grinned at her conspiratorially as if batteries were now an inside joke between them. "I'm the Doctor. Well – they call me the Doctor, I don't know why. I call me the Doctor, too. Still don't know why," he confessed, looking to the side to think about it more critically.
"I – uh – I'm Kathleen." She shook her head, unsure why she was still humoring him instead of shoving him headfirst out the door. Maybe it was because his eyes were way too smart and clear for him to be on hard drugs. "The Doctor?"
"Yep," he said with a friendly grin, obnoxiously popping the "p". "Who lives upstairs?"
"Neighbor," she answered guardedly, unwilling to give out someone else's personal information even if she did know it. Then she remembered he was here because of the advertisement she'd posted and decided to humor him, if for no other reason then to get him to leave without a fuss and no drug dealer murder target on her back. "He's an older guy, keeps to himself, 'cept for a stray that comes in sometimes… I think he feeds it…"
As if he already lived there, the Doctor let himself into her ground floor apartment. Kat followed apprehensively. Despite her better judgment, she didn't feel threatened by him at all, just a little cautious and weary.
She watched him rock on his heels while looking around the open-floor plan of the kitchen and the parlor. "Okay, seriously," she said after giving him time to take it in, "Who are you?"
He turned back around to face her. "I've told you. I'm the Doctor. This is the place, right?" He asked the obvious. Kat dropped the money bag and loose battery on the table by the door to cross her arms. Did he really think she was so stupid she couldn't tell when she was being redirected? For the time being, she let it lie. "Not bad for four hundred quid," he quipped, "Or is it pounds? This isn't bad for it, is it?"
Of all times for Kat to have set a low bar… she'd said just minutes ago that she'd settle with someone well-mannered and clean. Judging by his grooming and the perfect straightness of his bowtie, this man was unlikely a slob, and while eccentric with no understanding of boundaries, he had been perfectly friendly. Holding in a sigh, she nodded to answer his question.
"Look," she said, getting a hum in response from him. She did her best to look nonjudgmental. "If you're on edibles, that's okay. I don't mind, but I'm just gonna need the confirmation you're really high and not really crazy."
He gave a small smile that she couldn't quite place. There was amusement in his expression, but it was a complicated smile, not a joyous one. "The best people are all a little bit crazy," he advised her. It sounded so matter-of-fact and wise that for a moment she forgot she thought he was high, until he actually answered her question with, "And I'll have you know six feet is a perfectly acceptable height in this time." His eyes seemed to slide over her, eyeing the day planner she and Sophie kept by the door, before he looked back quickly with a pleasant smile. "Yours, is it?"
"Last I checked," Kat replied slowly, looking herself to make sure there was nothing weird on the calendar to prompt a question with such a self-evident answer. There wasn't.
The Doctor wandered off into the parlor to look in the corners on the other side of the room. Kat put her head in her hands for a moment. "High and crazy," she muttered to herself. Next time, she was asking for polite, tidy, and sober.
"Say," he said, sounding a little more serious than he had before. Kat picked her head up to see him looking up in the corner at the damage Sophie had pointed out. "I suppose that's dry rot?" He asked her, pointing.
Admittedly, she didn't know if dry rot was better or worse than water damage or its associated harms, but it certainly didn't sound good. "I thought it looked more like mildew," she offered uncertainly. "Maybe mold."
"Or none of the above…" he murmured, looking up at it again.
"I'm calling someone to fix it," she promised, guiltily thinking about that bag of money. That raised all sorts of red flags, but guaranteed rent meant guaranteed growth for her bank account, which meant being well-prepared for when she was finally getting the hell out of Colchester. "It's new damage, shouldn't be a health risk," she informed him, hoping against hope that it wouldn't scare him off.
He clapped his hands together, turning abruptly away from it. "No, I'll fix it," he declared confidently. Kat personally wasn't sure she should rely on him to do so. "I'm good at fixing rot, call me the Rotmeister," he boasted, and then frowned. Jeez, she was getting whiplash. "No, I'm the Doctor, don't call me the Rotmeister." Changing subjects again, he announced, "This is the most beautiful parlor I have ever seen."
The travel planner barely held in a snort. "That's more of a sad statement on your experiences than a compliment."
"You're obviously a lady of impeccable taste," he stated with a flattering, if completely ludicrous, level of sureness.
"Even I know the chair is hideous."
"It's not hideous," the Doctor objected quickly, then skirted around actually issuing a positive adjective. "It's just an acquired taste, I'm sure I'll acquire it very quickly. I can stay, Kathleen, can't I?" He stopped a couple feet away from her, eyes practically sparkling and leaning forward just a little. "Say I can," he urged with the tone of a friend issuing a playful dare to another.
"I'm guessing you're an acquired taste, too," she guessed.
She received a huge grin in return and a loud, "So I've been told!"
Though she knew it was crazy, she wasn't interested in kicking him out right away anymore. Now that she was expecting his quick talking, redirection, and roller coaster trains of thought, she could keep up with them better and found his over-the-top bracing attitude both amusing and endearing. Was it possible that she was actually the crazy one here, feeling fond about a weirdo who pushed himself into her apartment? She didn't feel unsafe in the least, just… surprised.
"Don't you want to see the room?" She prompted, uncrossing her arms.
"The room?" He repeated, looking at her almost blankly.
"The room you'd be renting?" She specified slowly.
"Oh, yes!" He remembered as soon as she reminded him and got all excited again, bringing his hands into an excited clap before smoothing down the front of his open coat. "My room! My room. Take me to my room!"
Without reading into the level of excitement about a private bedroom, Kat gestured in the direction and walked with the Doctor to the hallway, where the bathroom and both bedrooms were. The empty room was the one closer to the bathroom, and the door was left ajar. A soft lilac color was on the walls, and other than the cream-colored shag rug, all that remained was an unmade bed, desk, bedside table, and dull old lamp.
"It's Sophie's old room," Kat lamely offered in description, pushing open the door. The Doctor walked in, stopped near the foot of the bed, and turned around to look at all parts of it. "You can repaint it so long as you don't choose a very dark color, and of course you can replace the desk if it's too small." Sophie's job hadn't required much working space at home, but his tweed and Bluetooth seemed reminiscent of an overeager career man in the making.
She had barely finished talking when a loud crash echoed through the ceiling. Kat was usually patient with people, but she was embarrassed that her neighbor was being so noisy, and if she knew him better she might have thought to have a word over it later. As it was, she crossed her arms in a defensive posture and gave it a second to make sure that there would be no more falling objects. The Doctor looked up at the ceiling curiously. He seemed less upbeat now.
"That's, ah, our neighbor drops things sometimes," Kat explained, feeling sheepish. She didn't know why. Everyone dropped things sometimes, especially this kinda cute weirdo who moved his hands about so much when he talked.
"Our?" He looked back at her with the start of a grin pulling at his lips.
"Do you want the room?" She asked, unsure of his feelings on it now that he'd seen. The bedrooms were sort of small, but it was fully furnished, and the cost of rent included utilities, and he could paint over the pale purple.
As opposed to saying yes or no, the Doctor stuck his finger in his mouth to wet it and held it up in the air as if testing for the direction of the wind. Or, considering that they were in an apartment, the direction of the air conditioning. Kat wondered if she was going to regret being so relaxed about her standards.
"No time to lose!" The young man decided optimistically, making a short run for the bed and managing to jump on with his feet under him. He straightened his knees to stand upright, bouncing gently on the springs of the mattress.
Well, money was money. She didn't have to understand the guy to take his rent cash. "Right, sure," she said staggeringly, watching with bemusement as he put his ear as close to the ceiling as he could as if listening for more sound from the upstairs flat. "Just, can you promise me that sack of cash isn't full of dirty money?"
"Dirty?" He said, barely over a whisper, clearly intently focusing on what he could or couldn't hear from the upstairs. When he glanced at her and saw she was watching him for a clear answer, the Doctor bounced himself to the edge of the bed and leapt off, sticking a solid landing. "No, of course not," he said, looking just as confused as she had felt a moment ago. "I just pulled it from the cashpoint twenty minutes ago."
"No, I meant-" Kat caught herself, unsure she really wanted to ask, but decided it affected her safety so she had to know. "I meant, it's not connected to organized crime, and you're not paying your rent by selling scheduled drugs."
He looked surprised that it had even occurred to her. "Crime? No, no, no. No crimes here. I would be terrible at organized crime!" He proclaimed, waving it off. "I'm awful at getting my dates right, ask anyone. Especially Amy. Missed a date with her by twelve years once. Still haven't lived it down." Kat was skeptical, noting he didn't answer about the drugs. Redirecting her again, she noted, the Doctor looked down and took a leather billfold from his pocket. "Ah, you'll want to see my credentials, I suppose," he rambled on while flipping it open. "There. National insurance number."
The Doctor barely let her see it long enough to recognize what it was before he was taking it away. He passed the billfold behind his back, making a move with his hands like he was putting it back into a rear pocket, but when he showed it to her again on the other side with the other hand, it was clearly the same billfold.
"NHS number." He passed it behind himself again in the same feigned switch. "Ref-"
She cut him off by grabbing the billfold from him to actually give it a good look. It was a reference from… the Archbishop of Canterbury? Kat shook her head as she looked it over, turning the billfold for good measure. It was completely plain, not even a monogram inscribed, and although she was sure it was the same thing that had held his insurance and NHS numbers, Kat could clearly see there was only one slip in the billfold – the reference. It looked real enough. Could've been a forgery… also could've plausibly fooled someone.
Kat handed it back, deciding to take the route of plausible deniability. Though god knew why, she liked the man and would've been disappointed if she had to kick him out because she reasonably suspected crime was afoot. The Doctor took back his billfold, looking at her with intent curiosity for what she would say.
"I'm not stupid, that's the same pad as the other two." She gave him a long look. If he was going to be up to shenanigans in her home, he'd have to try a bit harder to keep them undetected. "Don't know how you made it look that way, but honestly I don't need to know, alright? Just keep any funny business outside this property, okay, it's a term of the sublease. Last thing I need's a cute, quirky roommate bringing scary folk to my door."
When she called him cute, the Doctor had started to smirk, flattered, and brought his hands up to straighten his already straight bowtie, but the smugness had gone once she implied any potential danger. He looked completely sober and serious as he took a step closer to her, looking down with stony eyes. With a low voice, he said, "If there's one thing I can promise you, Kathleen, it's that I will not be putting you in any danger. I'm the Doctor," he reiterated, tone softening gently. "I'm here to help."
It made absolutely no sense for his over-the-top behavior and strange claims to comfort her, but oddly, they did. He had one of those faces, she supposed, that just oozed trustworthiness, and his youthful, fast-talking façade was admittedly charismatic.
"… Okay." She said slowly, taking a step back away from him. "That was oddly intense. I'm going to need you to take it down at least two notches."
The Doctor studied her eyes for a few seconds longer before his entire posture relaxed. Boyish and flamboyant again, he flailed his arms a bit while sauntering around her to leave Sophie's old room. "Are you hungry?" He asked, loud and hopeful, and then announced, "I'm hungry. First meal in the new digs!" His voice became muffled by the wall as he headed quickly back to the kitchen.
Again, she noted, she was going to have whiplash from his rapid mood swings, not to mention how quickly he changed subjects. Kat almost called out to ask if he came with his own airbags. Instead, she closed the door as she left and made to follow, asking, "You're moving in now? Where's your stuff?"
"Oh, don't worry!" He cheerfully called back from the kitchen. "It'll materialize, if all goes to plan!"
Just for a passing moment, Kat questioned whether she should really be alright with this man making use of her kitchen with the comfort of someone who'd lived with her for years. Then she had smelled the food and decided, to hell with comfort, she was about to be fed something she herself couldn't make if her life depended on it. She was terrible at making omelets; they always turned into scrambled eggs.
Kat kept herself busy on the couch with her laptop while occasionally peeking up to see what her new lodger was doing. It hadn't quite sunk in yet that she'd found someone to fill Sophie's space quite so quickly, but she did think to make a note and take down the couple of flyers she'd put up. While she worked on a spreadsheet for Wanderlust's newest destination package, the Doctor found a large dishtowel to wear flung over his shoulder, figured out where all of the utensils and appliances were, and hummed (quite loudly) what seemed to be a version of an aria.
With blessings from Cass, Kat was able to put together a more complex package where there were different bundles. Each appealed to a certain goal that a traveler might have, such as food or adventure. Kat wished more than anything that she herself could do all the research, but she had to settle for a mixture of the Internet and network contacts in the areas she was marketing. Speaking of marketing – she grabbed a post-it note off the side of the table, scribbled a reminder to find a photographer or site where she could purchase some destination images, and stuck it to the frame of her computer.
Very solicitously, the Doctor brought her an omelet on a plate when he was done cooking, along with a cup of orange juice. She deduced quickly from the pulp that it had been freshly-squeezed. There went her work snacks… she could always buy more oranges, though. She closed her laptop, put it aside, and politely waited for him to come back with his own food before eating, letting the news play in the background.
She stole a few looks at him during their meal, but after checking she liked it and beaming when she confirmed, he appeared rapt on the news. There was an unfortunate string of missing people that the police were beginning to pick up on, but there weren't many details released to the public. Privately, Kat thought that was probably because the police didn't have many to begin with. Most of the missing were ideal serial killer targets: homeless persons, prostitutes, drug users. Among a group like that, Kat found it hard to believe that everyone was missing and not just running for greener pastures. There were a couple that were lower-risk members of the community, though, which made Kat take the threat more seriously, and she considered asking Cass if she could work from home in the evenings and avoid walking at dusk.
The Doctor finished before she did. Kat had a habit of eating slowly ever since she had relied on chopsticks in Asia for a few months. "That's the best omelet I've ever had," she complimented when she was done. "Do you like to cook?" He had sure seemed to be in great spirits.
"I like to learn a lot of things," the Doctor said, somehow seeming modest about his omelets but boastful about his apparent jack-of-all-trades range. "Learned that one in eighteenth-century Paris," he said with a nostalgic smile, then paused. "Wait, hang on, that's not very recent, is it? Seventeenth?" He glanced at her with a tone like he was just guessing.
"You're getting further off," she remarked, curling her legs underneath herself and sipping on her juice.
"No, twentieth," he decided. "Sorry, I'm not used to doing them in the right order."
Maybe he thought that was funny. At least he had gotten to the point in the end. "Well, whenever it was," she said mildly to show she wasn't upset. She wasn't amused, but she also wasn't irritated, "Paris must have been lovely."
"It always is," he said, looking past the television as if envisioning the French city on the far wall. "Ever been to Paris, Kathleen?"
That was going to get old, so she corrected him. "Kat, call me Kat, everyone does." Especially if they were going to be living together. It wasn't that she disliked her name, but she had gone by Kat since she was a small child who went out of her way to sneak food to the stray cats that lived in her parents' neighborhood. "I'd love to go, just haven't gotten to yet… and right now I've got to stay put, unfortunately." She sighed out the last part.
"Why's that?" The Doctor asked with a tilt of his head.
"Well, money. Livelihood. Traveling costs money." Kat made a face. She hated how trivial and shallow her life felt lately. She hadn't lied to Sophie, she really did enjoy the work she did, but it was just a means to an end and staring at pictures of India, or Budapest, or a coral reef just reminded her that she was stuck in Essex. The Doctor still looked curious, so she elaborated. "I studied abroad a couple times in school, and when I graduated I moved around. But the money ran out, and I had to pick a place to settle."
He considered it and nodded like a detective deciding her story checked out. "Why Colchester?" He asked next.
"Why not?" She countered. There was no real reason for anywhere else. "I met Sophie in uni. She was looking for a roommate. Can't lie, though, I like it. If I could take off tomorrow I would," she quickly admitted. "But it's not that I don't like it here, it's that I want the chance to like it everywhere else, too."
"Everywhere," the Doctor commented, raising his eyebrows and resettling to lean further into the sofa. "It's a big world. Bigger than you know." He was looking up at the ceiling now, a small smile on his face.
His voice was difficult to describe. It was like he knew something she didn't, and at the same time, like he admired what she wanted to do, all while entangled with emotions from his own past. Kat had never heard anyone talk like that about the size of the world, except for an old man she had met once who'd worked in the American Peace Corps for most of his career. It just felt out of place coming from a man who looked so young.
"Ah, no kidding. All this alien stuff in the last few years, I mean, Big Ben, the Cybermen, and all those planets in the sky… terrifying. There's so many people out there who have the means and desire to absolutely obliterate us."
The Doctor rolled his head along the top of the sofa cushion to look at her without lifting his neck. She let out a deep sigh while shrugging her shoulders haphazardly.
"Still, I've got to believe there are others that're just ambivalent, and others who'd like to be friendly. If the world's big enough for killer robot psychopaths, it's got to be big enough for explorers and friendlies, too," she reasoned, looking down at her wrist, harboring very private thoughts about what lay beneath her sleeve.
Please…
The Doctor sat upright again, bouncing slightly on the firm cushion with how suddenly he moved. "All those probes and satellites – you're drawing attention to yourselves!" He put his arms up to indicate the sky, and outer space above it. "It's a new age for humans. What happens next is all about how people respond. If you're going to be explorers and friendlies, too." He grinned with excitement.
"You're talking like you're not one of us," she accused jokingly, to which the Doctor smiled with his green eyes twinkling. She could already hear the joking tease that maybe he wasn't. "In any case, all that's beyond what I can do. I'll settle for seeing my own planet. Plenty of people don't even get to go do that."
"Starting with Paris?" The Doctor asked, playfully bringing the conversation full circle.
"Could be," she said noncommittally. When she wanted to see everywhere, there was no real sense of urgency attached to seeing any one place – Kat knew that she would get there eventually. "Or maybe I'll go backpacking and start over in Portugal," she suggested offhandedly. It was a daydream she played with when she got overly bored. "Who knows, maybe once I work my way around enough it'll finally sate the wanderlust."
The Doctor didn't have a response for that, gone silent and looking at her with a mixture of surprise and sympathy as if he knew exactly where she was coming from. Kat couldn't figure what the surprise might have been for, but after a second of thought with his slightly-open-mouthed staring, it started to make her nervous.
"What?"
He shut his mouth quickly. "Nothing," he hastily and obviously lied.
That was weird, but so far the list of normal things the Doctor had said or done could be counted on one hand and she'd have some fingers left over, so the woman put her glass on her plate, picked up both their plates, and carried them to the kitchen. He had cooked, so it was only fair for her to clean.
He hadn't dirtied much, and it looked like he had hurriedly cleaned as he went, so it only took Kat a couple of minutes to wash all the dishes, load them into the dishwasher, and put the remaining ingredients away in the fridge. Then she wiped down the counter to finish. Once that was done, she went to the island where her painted ceramic bowl still sat and plucked out a set of silver keys. Each key had a little piece of rubber fitted tightly around the outside of the head.
"Anyway," she said, knocking him out of his quietly thoughtful reverie. She had felt his eyes watching her as she had cleaned up, but when she looked at him, he had a faraway look in his eyes. Her guess was that she reminded him of someone. "These are your keys now." She offered the set to him.
He looked from her, to the keys, and back up, a bright, infectious smile growing on his handsome face. "I can stay?"
"You can cook and like to travel, we're compatible enough," she allowed, dropping them into his waiting hand. "Green is building door, blue is our door, pink is your door. Sophie color coded them, you can take them off if you want, or replace 'em with something else to keep track."
"My door." The Doctor put the keyring around one of his fingers and let them rattle on his hand. "My place. My gaff!" Kat got the feeling he didn't particularly care about the pink on the room key. "Ha! Yes, me with a key!"
"Come and go as you like, I'm a heavy sleeper," she invited. It seemed like the time for a good rundown, but there really wasn't much she required of him. "Trash goes on Thursday and Monday mornings; we have to drive recycling to the convenience center ourselves. I'll get you the landlord's and super's numbers. Ah… if you want me to leave for a while, you know, for company," she paused a second for emphasis, "I've got a blanket invitation from my friends, so no worries."
His absolutely perplexed look would have been adorable, if it weren't for that a grown man was asking for her to explicate on hook-up procedure. "Why would I want that?"
"… Well, you know, if it ever… comes up…" Kat offered awkwardly, then inwardly cringed at her phrasing.
"Doubt it," the Doctor said, still looking befuddled. "Kicking you out of your own flat, that'd be rude. By the way, that… the rot." He had started to point up to the corner but abandoned the motion, and just like that, the confusion and excitement were both completely gone. He looked apprehensively to the stain on the ceiling. "I've got the strangest feeling we shouldn't touch it."
The cautionary tone was unmistakable, but she wasn't very clear on why he thought she didn't already know that. Touching rot or mildew? Gross. "You'll be delighted to know I wasn't planning to," she deadpanned.
Wanderlust. It was such a human word, indicating a thirst for travel and new experiences and a discontent once settled in one place for too long. As a youth, the Doctor had mixed feelings about this alien word printed on his wrist. The language of a soulmark was always the native tongue of one's soulmate, and it wasn't Gallifreyan.
Why weren't he and his match the same species? It was a source of shame for his family's elders, who wanted him to ascend to the ranks of the famously detached and insular Time Lords. The fear was that the Prydonian Academy, and later Time Lords, would view his draw to another species as a liability. He learned to cover it and keep his questions about other species and languages to a minimum, just enough that it could be passed off as a child's curiousity. At night on his family's property, the Doctor stared at the stars, wondering who they would turn out to be, and why, of all words, wanderlust best suited them. He had his family, and his best friend, on this planet. There was a great big world out there to see – but to never return, to never have a home at home?
Age brought clarity, as it so often does. At first, he had learned about other planets and species zealously in the hopes that he would be prepared to meet his soulmate. Over a couple of years, the subject had sparked a genuine interest that went beyond his personal connection. The boy learned there were entire worlds to see and explore, and people so different from those on his home world. Yes, he knew, Gallifrey was a superior planet; that being affirmed, he didn't think other planets, who were less advanced, were necessarily bad. Species developed slowly and he didn't think it was fair to dismiss them all solely on the basis of where they were at developmentally relative to his own. He saw past those lesser advancements and instead saw the beauty of things he couldn't imagine seeing or doing and wanted to study them in person. Anthropology was an acceptable specialty for Time Lords, but that wasn't enough. He wanted to understand, not just observe. Within his first incarnation, he understood why his soulmark was the concept of wanderlust.
In his long life, he had met many people whose wanderlust shone through their circumstances. He had come to realize that it wasn't a particularly uncommon trait in humans, but it did tend to connotate open-mindedness and a sense of adventure, often making for the best traveling companions. None of them ever recognized his language, though. None of them responded to the word wanderlust, not sensing the shared importance of its meaning.
Hundreds of years ago, the Doctor had realized something important. While he could read English, his soulmate, being a human, would have no understanding of Gallifreyan. Not only would they not be able to read their shared word, but their mark wouldn't even recognize it as their match if they saw its English equivalent on him. It fell on the Time Lord to look for Gallifreyan on the arms of those he encountered. He found a way to ask or discreetly check whenever he met someone he thought was kind or clever, because he knew whoever his soulmate was would have to be both.
Sometimes, like with Amy, he said his English word anyway, thinking maybe the connection would make it feel right, even if they couldn't read it on themselves. That hadn't been the case with Kat, and since she had said it herself, saying it back to her likely would just make her think he was repeating her to build rapport.
Kat had said it to him. She clearly felt wanderlust herself. She was open-minded enough to hope for friendly aliens – also a rather important quality, given that he himself was a friendly alien. He didn't need his hopes up again, but… maybe it would be worth a check.
For now, though, he had bigger fish to fry. Not that, in the long run, a suspicious upstairs apartment was more important than meeting his soulmate, but more so in the respect that Kat was possibly not even his match, but in the meantime, the suspicious upstairs apartment was most definitely some form of threat. The Doctor tried to push the meaning of his mark out of his mind along with the girl who had said it unknowingly.
"Earth to Pond, Earth to Pond!" He called, getting up on his new bed and bouncing on the springy mattress. His earpiece cast a blinking green light along the wall to indicate it was tuned into the TARDIS. "Come in, Pond!"
"Doctor!" Amy called loudly, her voice changing volume as if she were moving closer to the microphone. He cringed and put a hand to his ear at the shrieking feedback that cycled through. After a second, much more quietly, Amy apologized.
"Could you not wreck my new earpiece, Pond?" He complained briefly. "How's the TARDIS coping?"
"See for yourself," she answered. The feedback this time was minimal as she picked up and held out the microphone to the TARDIS console. His beautiful machine was making aching, wheezing noises like scraping gears and stressed, broken valves.
"Ooh," he winced, hearts tugged. "Nasty. She's locked in a materialization loop, trying to land again, but she can't." It must have taken all her might just to land long enough to boot him out, the poor girl.
Amy hummed, giving her agreement that it sounded bad. "And whatever's stopping her is upstairs in that flat, right?" She didn't wait for him to answer, because they both already knew. She clicked something together for emphasis. "So, go upstairs and sort it!"
"I don't know what it is yet," the Doctor explained, looking up at the ceiling and wondering. Whatever it was, did they even know that they were doing harm? If they did, it was too big of a risk to out himself as a threat to their plan. "Anything that can stop the TARDIS from landing is big… scary big," he murmured, more to himself, thinking about all of the big things that hadn't managed to interfere with his ship.
"Wait," Amy asked with surprise, "Are you scared?"
How to answer? Daleks, Cybermen, and the Time Lords themselves were the most dangerous threats he could dream of, and yet he had stared down them all on multiple occasions. This was new. Different. His greatest asset was his brain, but his second-greatest was out of his reach with his friend trapped inside. Not to mention that he had a growing eerie sensation along the back of his neck, survival instincts warning him that this was not the place to stay. Of course, that just made it more clear that this was where he was needed to be, but it didn't bode well for the innocent woman who lived here none the wiser.
The innocent woman who said the word on his wrist… consequentially or not had yet to be seen… No, that wasn't the big fish right now.
No, he wasn't scared. He was worried. But he knew Amy, and if he confirmed that he was worried, she would be scared.
"I can't go up there until I know what it is and how to deal with it," he reiterated, kicking his feet out from under him and dropping to the mattress. After he bounced, he flopped down and splayed his arms to either side. "And it is vital that this man upstairs doesn't realize who and what I am. So no sonicking, no advanced technology. I can only use this earpiece because we're on scramble. To anyone else hearing this conversation, we are talking absolute gibberish."
He did wonder if that was the way to go. Appearing to be a few pieces short of the puzzle could unsettle Kathleen to the point where she no longer felt safe welcoming him into her home, and aside from not wanting to scare the woman, he didn't need the added obstacle of not being permitted in the building. It also meant that any race capable of interpreting the presence of his sonic screwdriver would also likely understand what the scramble mode truly was – a disguise of his real conversation. Still, he decided it was best to reveal the minimum number of cards.
"Now all I've got to do is pass as an ordinary human being," he told Amy confidently. "Easy. Simple. What could possibly go wrong?"
Amy groaned in the TARDIS. "Have you seen you?" She asked bluntly and rudely.
"Oi!" He yelped indignantly, internally grateful that she hadn't seen any images of that awful rainbow coat he wore several lifetimes ago. "So you're just going to be snide? No helpful hints?"
"Hm, well, here's one," she offered, changing her tune helpfully. "Bowtie – get rid!"
He frowned and defensively argued, "Bowties are cool!" He adjusted his out of habit when he spoke about it. "Come on, Amy, I'm a normal bloke. Tell me what normal blokes do."
Amy sighed loudly. The Doctor couldn't help but think he should take any following advice with a few grains of salt, just in case. "They watch the telly, they go to work, they play football," she listed with exasperation. The Doctor frowned, already thinking how to check those off a list. Amy wasn't done. "They go down the pub and try their luck with a pretty girl. Hey, Doctor," she asked in a lilting, teasing voice, "Is the girl pretty?"
"I don't know," the Doctor lied hastily as he recalled her profile when she had said his word. That had gotten his attention all on her; her soft hair and her hazel eyes… "I didn't notice." He shifted on the bed, digging his elbows into the bedding and using them to push himself up north so his head was on a pillow. "I could do those things," he said confidently. "I don't, but I could."
A loud bang came from upstairs, sounding like something large was actively attempting to come downstairs the shorter way. The Doctor sat upright, tilting his head back to stare at the general direction of the loud, almost mechanical-sounding crash. Something tugged on his senses, the metaphysical version of feeling fingers plucking on his braces.
"Hang on, wait, wait, wait," he mumbled, remembering Kat's warning about the man upstairs and how he often seemed to be dropping things. "Amy?"
The roaring wheeze of the TARDIS was only quieter than the echoing of the cloisters in his earpiece, although Amy's startled yelp and subsequent scream came in at a close third place. The light over his head flickered as if the power were draining, and the Doctor's eyes caught on the alarm clock Sophie had left behind. Its arms were twitching forwards, then spinning several seconds backwards, only to repeat and rewind again. A glance down at his watch told the same story as the agitating sensation of being out of sync with time only grew.
Kat was many things, but a cheat was not one of them. She carefully counted out each stack of £400 and bound the bills together with a rubber band. She didn't dare put them all in the bank at once, so counting out the monthly rent was her solution. With her own money, she'd buy a safe to store the extra stacks in. However the Doctor had gotten the cash, so long as no one was getting hurt for it, she just wanted to avoid any awkward questions.
She did this while on the phone with her best friends. As soon as she had gone to her room for the night, she'd called Sophie and Craig to let them know that there was a new person living in her apartment with her. Sophie was a worrier and Kat would have gotten an earful if she'd slept with a stranger in her home without anyone else knowing.
"I'll tell you what, he seems like a right laugh," Craig said through the phone, laughing. She was on speaker with them both, but they were having polar opposite reactions to Kat's description of her new lodger.
"He's weird," Kat agreed, binding another month's worth of notes together. "But I'm not sure it's a bad weird. Violent crazies have given fun crazies a bad rep," she commented, thinking about how no one ever saw any stories about lunatics where no one got hurt, or at the very least, extremely frightened. "Well, that's almost eight months' rent in cash. Least I won't be chasing for it."
"He just happens to have three thou on him in a paper bag?" Sophie incredulously asked, sounding much closer to the phone. She could just picture the duo in their kitchen, the phone on the counter, the blonde leaning over it while Craig dried dishes a few feet away. "Don't you think that's a bit bad weird?"
Kat made a face, which they obviously couldn't see, and in that time Craig interjected, "Not everyone trusts the banks, Soph."
"Wait, though," Sophie objected in a grimly serious tone. "The Doctor?" She repeated almost mockingly. "Kat, what if he's a dealer? And a bowtie, are you serious?"
"He really likes his bowtie," she remarked calmly. She understood where Sophie was coming from, but she had always trusted her instincts about people and she felt safe. Whatever habits the Doctor may have weren't any of her business so long as they weren't done in front of her.
Craig was chuckling at Sophie's gripes. "Can't a man choose his own neck apparel?"
"Craig, I'm not kidding!"
"I did ask him if it's crime or drug money," Kat offered to soothe Sophie's evident nerves. Also, to prove that she wasn't completely naïve. "He said he'd be terrible at crime. I'll take it as plausible deniability, if nothing else." One by one, she put the small stacks of bank notes into the bag they came in and then put it out of sight into her bedside drawers.
"What'd he say about the drugs, though?" Sophie persisted.
"… Didn't really get a solid answer on that," she admitted, trying to ignore the quiet sounds she could hear through the shared wall which suggested Sophie might be right.
Sophie didn't like that. "Kat!"
"Well he said it's not blood money, Soph," Craig reasonably pointed out, emphasizing the word 'blood' as if he found the whole thing much more amusing than concerning. "Which is worse, I mean, possibly getting some grass cash and not knowing about it, or lodging a completely normal-lookin' guy who turns out to be the reason all these people are going missing?"
Kat almost sarcastically thanked him for making that suggestion. "It's a very dangerous time to be single indeed," she dryly said, idly wondering if Ted Bundy had ever charmed a woman into renting him a room. The sounds from the Doctor's room got louder for a second, and Kat looked towards the wall, deciding she should just see. "Hang on."
"What? Kat?"
Kat slid off her bed and tiptoed to the wall. It would be awkward if the Doctor heard her moving in her room and knew she'd tried to overhear him in his. She ignored the concerned calling from her phone and instead leaned over her own desk, turning her head to put her ear against the thin wall's plaster.
The Doctor's voice was muffled, but understandable when she stood this close. "Orange juice," he stated matter-of-factly, and then went on to use some words she didn't recognize. Then, almost excitedly, "Rare tarantula on the table!" Kat glanced at the desk, impulsively ensuring there was no spider on her table. "Oh… practical eruption in chicken! Descartes Lombardy spiral."
Kat shook her head as she slowly moved away from the wall and back to her bed and the phone. Picking it up, she took it off its quiet speaker now that she was done using her hands for the money and put it to her ear. "Well, good thing he told me it's not weed cash, 'cause I can still say he's just weird," she mumbled, loud enough to be sure they would hear.
That inspired Craig to offer seriously, "Are you sure you don't want us to come over and meet this guy, Kat?" For all he'd been making light, he was an excellent friend and wanted her to feel safe. Craig was the kind of guy who'd offered to walk or drive her and Sophie home every time they had a late night.
"Yes!" Kat answered, letting her voice belay exasperation. "Yes, I'm fine. Jiu-jitsu, remember?"
Sophie didn't sound fully convinced, but she knew that none of her worries were anything Kat hadn't already considered and dismissed. "We've always got the couch for you if you change your mind," she reminded.
"Thanks," Kat said sincerely. "I love you guys. I'm going to turn in, take care."
"Call in the morning!" Sophie's plea almost sounded like a command. It made her friend smile. "I mean it, first thing!"
The volume of their voices switched as Craig took the phone. "Which is to say, love you too, and goodnight!"
Craig hung up, likely before Sophie could take the phone and demand Kat promise to provide proof of life come sunrise. Kat laughed quietly at her predictable but very kind friends. She took the phone away from her ear and hit the red button to end the call. Right as her screen flashed with the call duration, the ceiling knocked particularly loudly.
The sound seemed louder than it usually was, almost like a sledgehammer was dropped instead of the regular-sized hammer Kat swore her neighbor threw sometimes. The hanging light on her ceiling rattled and some tiny specks of plaster drifted down from the ceiling. Kat put her phone down on the bed as the lights flickered and she sighed.
Craig hung up, likely before Sophie could take the phone and demand Kat promise to provide, come sunrise, proof of life. Kat quietly laughed at her predictable but very kind friends. She removed the phone from her ear and hit the red button to end the call. Right as her screen flashed with the call duration, the ceiling banged particularly loudly.
The sound seemed louder than it usually was, almost like a brick was dropped instead of the hammer Kat swore her neighbor threw sometimes. The hanging light on her ceiling rattled and some dusty specks of plaster drifted down from the ceiling. As Kat put her phone down on the bed, the lights flickered and she sighed.
Craig hung up, probably before Sophie could take the phone and demand Kat promise to provide proof of life come sunrise. Kat quietly laughed at her very kind, but predictable, friends. She lowered the phone from her ear and hit the red button to end the call. Right as her screen flashed with the length of the call, the ceiling very noisily banged.
The sound seemed louder than it usually was, almost like a cement block was dropped instead of the hammer Kat swore her neighbor threw around. The overhead ceiling light rattled and dusty bits of plaster drifted from the ceiling. Kat put her phone down on the bed while the lights flickered. She sighed and frowned. Something about the motion seemed familiar-
Craig hung up, likely before Sophie could take the phone and demand Kat promise that, come sunrise, she'd provide proof of life. Kat laughed softly at her very kind and predictable friends. She took the phone from her ear and ended the call with the red button. Right as the call duration flashed on her screen, the ceiling banged noisily.
The sound seemed louder than it usually was, almost like a sledgehammer was dropped instead of the regular-sized brick Kat swore her neighbor threw around sometimes. The hanging ceiling light shook and some dusty specks of plaster rained from the ceiling. Kat put her phone on the bed while the lights flickered and she frowned, reaching for her head to quell the unease.
She felt a case of deja-vu so intense that for a moment she wondered if she was going to be sick. Looking around her room, she watched the plaster dust settle on the carpet and heard silence from the wall she shared with the Doctor. Some tiny voice inside her urged her to check on him, ensure everyone was okay. But that didn't make any sense, she scolded herself before getting off of her bed. It was fine. The neighbor did that all the time.
The distortion didn't last very long, but it had still caused a knot of unease in his chest. The Doctor kept his eyes on the ticking secondhand of his watch until it was a solid five seconds past its point of reversal. The light stabilized and the timepieces went on as if nothing had happened. In his earpiece, the sounds from the TARDIS and Amy had settled into a groaning hum.
"Interesting," he murmured. "Localized time loop…"
The Time Lords had been the only species to master time travel to the extent that they had. The Doctor's ability to hop precisely from one moment to the next, or back by an exact number of years, was rivalled only by the Time Agency's notoriously unreliable gadgets. Sure, they took the user elsewhere in time and space, but they also had a tendency to ignore the desired coordinates and, worse, cause their user to take ill or injured. Short of Time Lord tech and vortex manipulators, though, time travel means were rudimentary at best as far as he knew, and the reason for that was because harnessing a power strong enough to facilitate the travel was extremely difficult. Which was all to say, whatever was happening upstairs involved something extremely powerful.
"Ow," Amy complained, breathing hard, and then talked to him again. "What was all that?"
"A time distortion. Right here, in Colchester, we lived through the same seconds several times." The Doctor answered, looking up at the ceiling again with wariness.
"It's stopped on my end," Amy reported, sounding thankful as she caught her breath and calmed her nerves. "Ish. How about your end?"
Through the wall, the Doctor heard a quiet creaking noise from furniture. Good to know Kat hadn't been too bothered by it, if she had noticed anything at all. "My end's good," he assured.
"So…" Amy sounded hopeful in his ear. "Doesn't sound great, but nothing to worry about?"
Nothing to worry about? It was as if she didn't realize that something extremely powerful, and therefore extremely dangerous, was upstairs masquerading as – according to his new flatmate – a clumsy old man in between instances of ripping little tears in the flow of time itself. Humans.
"No, no, not really," he said conversationally instead. There was little, if anything, that she could do from where she was in the TARDIS. "Just keep the zigzag plotter on full. That'll protect you." Keeping the TARDIS's shields up as high as they could go was the best solution he could offer.
Something in the TARDIS made a hissing sound and then the Time Lord heard a pop! that he knew from experience always came with sparks. Amy gasped. "Ow!"
"Amy, I said the zigzag plotter!"
"I pulled the zigzag plotter!" Amy snapped irritably.
The Doctor scratched the back of his head while envisioning the console in front of him. "What, you're standing with the door behind you?" He checked. There was a pause before Amy confirmed. He rolled his eyes and said, "Okay, take two steps to your right and pull it again."
Amy didn't complain this time, but he did catch her mumbling something about how she was still pulling the same stupid lever so it shouldn't matter where her feet were. He pretended not to hear out of an absolute lack of time to explain how finnicky his ship could be.
"Now, I must not use the sonic, but I've got work to do," he mused, itching to learn more and eventually say a quick hello and goodbye to the man upstairs. "Need to pick up a few items…"
While she laid in bed, Kat stared at her keys on her bedside table. The little keychain of Captain America's shield glinted in the gleam of headlights passing through the window. In the quiet time between street noises, she could hear muffled talking from the Doctor's room. God knew who he was talking to. His cadence sounded like it was a conversation, but his words sounded like anything else.
Her lodger didn't stay up for very long after she had turned off her light, and in the near silence that followed, Kat revisited Sophie's concerns. The Doctor's appearance had been… odd. He had certainly knocked her off kilter. Whatever it was about his face and his eyes and his voice that made her feel he was trustworthy, Kat wished she could put her finger on it so she could explain it to herself.
Craig was right about one thing, though. She'd rather a weirdo or even a drugdealer than a serial killer. Kat shifted to lay on her back, folding her arms underneath her head. If the Doctor were a serial killer, she imagined his temperament would be a lot less lighthearted. He definitely wouldn't wear an outfit like that – he was practically begging people to notice and remember him.
How many people passed through the grocery store in a day, and how many of them were flat shopping? Kat almost wished she knew the actual statistics. It was believable enough someone had seen her flyers. That was why she had put them up, after all. But coming to the address the same day, with no prior warning? How had he known to come to this particular address?
She thought about it for what had to be ages and came to the conclusion that there were two options. Firstly, the Doctor was a stalker who had followed her home at some point. Secondly, she had been so tired when making her flyers that she'd unthinkingly listed the address without meaning to. The latter sounded a lot more probable, especially knowing that her mind hadn't been fully on the task at hand at the time. Kat had been busy reminiscing about Sophie moving out. Just in case, she figured she'd best keep that mace handy and the bedroom door locked, at least for the first few days, but that was just as much to settle her inner Sophie as due to actual concerns.
He was good to make conversation with, and that was promising, too. Weren't serial killers supposed to be socially stunted? The obvious American exception aside, of course.
It's a new age, he had said. Her mind drifted back to Christmas a few years past and the then-Prime Minister's news broadcast about Britain's golden age. Science and stars, Kat had thought then. Golden indeed. The Doctor was right about that, though. With all their expansion and exploration into space, human crafts had been bound to run into something sooner or later if one subscribed to the belief that there was life among the stars. Given the ample evidence of the last five or so years, Kat had to accept that there was not just some life, but many forms of life, ranging from the mechanical Daleks to whatever scientifically-advanced force had been able to guide people to the rooftops.
If there were other forms of life out there, didn't that mean there were other languages, as well?
Kat unfolded her arms and looked at her wrist. She could barely make out the dark contrast between her skin and her intricate soulmark. A long time ago, she had dreamed to herself that maybe the reason no one could decrypt her word was because the language didn't exist on Earth. Maybe she wasn't broken. In the post-Space Race age, the age of the moon and Mars and rovers and satellites more powerful than ever before, maybe she was somehow matched with someone from beyond her own planet.
In the light of day, she had dismissed those fantasies. They were born out of loneliness and the fear of watching her friends find happiness while she waited for a comfort that would never come, and the even worse fear that she might try to make a relationship only to lose her partner to their own romantic soulbond. But life wasn't fair, and it was childish to imagine that she was going to be that one special person who got a soulmark that bound them to the stars – not to mention that the idea of aliens, much less aliens compatible with humans, would be out there to begin with!
Things had changed in the last several years, but how much change was Kat willing to hope for? And did she really want an alien? If there were a tribe living in a remote wilderness whose language resembled her mark, Kat would be thrilled. Nervous, but thrilled. Somehow, the idea of being soulmates to an alien wasn't a complete put-off, but it wasn't exactly what she desired most, either. Part of what made people compatible were shared experiences and values. How much could she have in common with someone who wasn't from Earth? At least someone from an isolated, remote tribe in the Amazon would share some universal human experiences.
There was an entire philosophical debate to be had there, about what was truly universal and what made an experience uniquely human. In the so-called Golden Age, the time of science and stars, philosophy degrees were maybe not in higher demand, but certainly made much more interesting. Kat didn't have the mental energy to get into it herself, and definitely not over whimsy.
But was it really just whimsy, or was it a legitimate what-if? If the language couldn't be found on Earth, and there was proof that there were extraterrestrial languages at play in the universe, then was it really that silly to suppose, even hypothetically, that the foreign language on her arm was actually alien?
Kat put her arm back down and rolled to her side again. Captain America's shield glinted in the tiny sliver of light coming through her blinds.
A/N: From here on, I'll be updating on Thursdays. The cover art for this story is Kat's soulmark.