Falling Into the Eleventh Hour
Callie's life had always been painfully ordinary. She grew up, went to college, and wound up working in an independent bookstore. It wasn't the ideal life, but it was okay. She made enough money at her job to live in a small one-bedroom apartment and had a little spending money each month. Her mom was always getting on her about finding a "real job" (why did everyone assume retail wasn't a real job? That shit is hard, and Callie kicked ass at it), but she had no real direction in life. Her degree was in Children's Literature, which translated to exactly zero prospective jobs. She had no real passions (in the back of her mind, she'd always wanted to be an author, but never had the time to write), so she never knew where to even look.
Little did she know, she wouldn't have to look- the big shake-up she'd been yearning for was going to find her instead.
It all started on a normal Tuesday morning. Unusual things tend to happen on Tuesdays, though most people don't pay close enough attention to notice. Callie got up at the normal time, dressed in her normal work attire (high-waisted jeans, T-shirt tucked neatly into said jeans, and her comfy pair of Doc Martens), and left her apartment at the normal time. The car ride to work was a bit more traffic-jammed than normal, but she still made it to the bookstore ten minute before she was due.
Callie wasn't actually a manager of Parnassus Bookstore, but she had been trained on opening and closing the store. The store was dark and quiet as she entered.
Open went well, and she settled into her chair at the register to await the day's shipment of books. The street outside woke up as the clock struck nine, and soon the street was filled with potential customers. No one came in.
Callie sighed. Business had been slow lately. She was afraid the owner might have to make some cuts, and she was the most recent hire. She would be the first to go.
She jumped when the phone rang, breaking the deafening silence in the store. She scrambled a little, her fingers fumbling before finally grasping the phone.
"Parnassus Books, this is Callie. How can I help you?" She answered, rattling off the mantra without a thought. (Don't say anything, but sometimes Callie has to stop herself answering her own cell phone in the same matter simply out of habit.)
"Do you have the book that was on Ellen yesterday?" The woman on the phone sounded older, and her question made Callie close her eyes and sigh a little.
"Do you know the name of the book?" Callie asked, sliding her chair over to the aging computer behind the counter. Her fingers, adorned with chipped black nail polish and two amethyst rings, were poised and ready to search the book.
"I- I don't know, it was on Ellen," the woman on the phone said impatiently. "Don't you watch Ellen?"
"No, ma'am," Callie said politely, her soul dying a little bit more as this conversation continued. "But I can look up the book if you can tell me the name or the author."
"Well, it had something to do with trees," the woman mused, "and I think the fellow's named was Jack. Jack Marshmallow."
Quickly, Callie looked up every iteration of trees/woods/forest and Jack/Marsh/Marshmallow, and pulled up exactly nothing. The bell above the front doors chimed as someone walked in, and Callie shot them a quick smile in greeting as she grabbed her cell phone. A Google search took her a few minutes, but finally she found out the name of the book. And lo and behold, it had nothing to do with trees, nor was it by a man named Jack
"Is it Gardens of Earth by Johanna Mitchell?" Callie asked.
"Well, obviously! That's what I said."
Callie bit back a retort. "Of course. Well, it looks like that book doesn't come out until next Tuesday. I can put one of the books on hold for you, but you won't be able to purchase it until then."
"I can be there at four to get it," the woman said. "Put it under Dottie Malcom."
"No, ma'am, you can't get it until Tuesday."
"If I leave after lunch, I can be there at three."
"On Tuesday," Callie stressed. "Not today."
"See you at three!"
Callie groaned as Dottie hung up on her. She looked at the schedule and hoped silently that Dottie would show up during her break at three thirty. That way Ethan would be the one who would have to deal with her and explain that she can't buy the book until its release date. Still, she figured she should go put the hold on one of the copies in the back. It was something to do. The only customer to come into the store had made herself comfortable on one of the cushy chairs in the corner with her laptop- clearly she wasn't going to be buying something anytime soon.
Callie printed the paper and took it into the back room. She got halfway to the New Releases cart when she realized why it felt weird in there.
There was a large crack in the wall. It was gaping open, yellowish-white light spilling out onto the floor like water. The crack hadn't been there yesterday, or any day before that. Callie stood there, transfixed, for an undetermined amount of time. Something about the crack seemed... eerily familiar. She took a step forward to get a better look. Raising a finger to the air, she traced the shape of the crack.
Now, she hadn't watched an episode of Doctor Who since graduating college (can't afford cable and Netflix pulled it), but that looked exactly like the crack in the universe from season five. The one from Amy's childhood bedroom.
"Impossible," she breathed.
Impossible. Yes, it was utterly impossible. Not only for such a crack to appear seemingly overnight, but the light. On the other side of that wall, connected by the strip mall Parnassus Books was situated in, was a TJ Maxx. The watery light dripping through the crack was impossible- she should have been staring at the kitchen section of the home goods store.
The paper with Dottie's hold fluttered to her feet as she walked forward. Without thinking, she reached out to touch the light. Just to see if it was substantial like it looked. It wasn't, but it was warm and inviting.
Callie had never been one to do stupid things. She always got good grades, never went to parties, and volunteered at her local food bank. Never had she made the kind of dumb choices her younger brother was prone to. But an impossible crack on the wall with impossible light seeping onto her worn Docs was enough to pull her in.
She had to know what was on the other side. The small part of her brain that was still rational knew that on the other side was most likely TJ Maxx. Most likely, the light was some sort of optical illusion and she would tumble into the shelves and maybe knock her head on a discounted pots-and-pans set. Most likely, there was a rational explanation for the crack itself.
But Callie didn't want to think rationally. She was tired of it! Tired of her boring life dealing with rude customers, eating the cheapest food available at the grocery store, going absolutely nowhere. She had done everything right and yet she was going nowhere.
Her hands touched the edge of the crack, which was just shy of being too hot to handle. She couldn't even see her fingers, they were so enveloped in light. She closed her eyes against the bright hue and pulled herself inside.
Though no wind blew, Callie's long curls whipped around her head wildly as she clung to the far end of the crack. Whirls and swirls of orange, yellow, and white whipped round in a giant vertical tunnel with seemingly no beginning or ending. Her eyes burned from looking, and every inch of her body still touching the crack was scorching hot.
If she entertained the thought that likened the crack to the one from Doctor Who, she would say that this must be the Time Vortex. It didn't look quite like the intro to the show, but it was similar enough.
Something hard pushed on her foot, burning the sole. Callie pulled her foot closer to her body as she yelped. She curled to look back into the crack, expecting to see the backroom of Parnassus peeking through the strands of light, but instead she saw a wall. The wall crept closer, pushing her into the Vortex. The Vortex which had no bottom. She had nowhere to go.
It felt like her body was on fire. The heat was immeasurable, and her eyes were almost completely blinded from the light and the tears streaming down her face.
This was the stupidest of all stupid moves, wasn't it? She'd crawled through her mysterious crack and landed the fucking Time Vortex. Nothing could survive here! She was dead- if not already, then soon.
"Fuck," she tried to moan, but the heat scorched down her throat and she cried out instead. The wall inside the crack pressed against her leg, and soon she was barely in the crack any more. Her head and torso hung over the unending vortex. Through her streaming eyes, she saw something odd. Something blue.
Impossible.
Everything about this day was impossible, so let's add the TARDIS into the mix. Why not? Callie would have laughed in irony if it wouldn't cause her more pain, more burning.
This was her one chance, and it would be a tight one. As much as she could see, the TARDIS was bouncing wildly off the Vortex walls, back and forth and back and forth. She reached out as the blue blur came close to her. Her finger tips brushed the painted wood and the doors opened (why would they open?), allowing her to grasp at the spaceship much easier. The TARDIS continued on its unruly journey as Callie struggled to pull herself inside. The blue box gave an extra large lurch, and suddenly she was falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Through the yellow console room, through a blur of white halls, a dark room she couldn't name.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Down.
Down.
Down.
And then she fell into the pool.
Gasping, she struggled to get back to the surface. Her arms flailed wildly until she was able to breath air again.
"Callie? Oh good, glad you're here!"
To her left was a man she'd only ever seen on screen before. He was treading water easily, looking around at the room they were in.
Callie's brain short-circuited. That was Matt Smith- no, that was the Doctor.
If today were a meme, it would be that image of John Mulaney that read "You ever have those days where you're like 'this might as well happen. Adult life is already so goddamn weird'."
Today was already weird enough- what else could she do but roll with it?
"What the hell is happening?" She asked, her voice pitched hysterically. Okay, so maybe "rolling with it" wasn't the best term.
The Doctor (god, was this real life?) looked up. "It looks like the pool has somehow made it into the library."
"That doesn't answer my question," Callie said, though she did look around to see the pool was, in fact, in the middle of a large, ornate library. Huh. "How the hell am I here? How did this happen?"
"You're here the way you usually come, I assume," the Doctor said absently. "Aha!" He spotted something useful, apparently, and swam to the edge of the pool and pulled himself out.
Callie swam a little until she could stand in the water easily. Her mind was racing a mile a minute, but the main thing she thought was how nice the cool water felt on her body. A cursory check told her that her burns hadn't left any marks, which seemed impossible given how painful they'd been but today seemed to be Impossible Day. Hell, she was currently in a spaceship with a fictional character. How much more impossible could it get?
"Callie, are you coming?" The Doctor called. Callie's head snapped to look at him, and realized four things of note.
One, he'd somehow gotten a huge ladder to extend into the ceiling, assumingly all the way up to the doors of the TARDIS.
Two, he wasn't wearing the right outfit. The blue suit he wore was a bit torn and worse for wear, but it was certainly not the eleventh doctor's usual outfit. In fact- it was Ten's.
Three, the Doctor was freshly regenerated, which explained the weird gravity issue that allowed her to literally fall through corridors, as well as the pool in the library.
And four, for whatever reason, the Doctor knew her name.
"Callie?" He repeated, finally looking at her head on.
"How do you know my name?" She asked.
"What?"
"This- today- nothing makes sense. Nothing at all. But you knowing my name makes the least amount of sense so..." Her voice trailed off. She waded over to the edge of the pool.
"I've known your name for years," the Doctor answered seriously. A creeping, unsettled feeling washed over Callie. She could tell he wasn't lying.
"That's not possible," Callie insisted. "I've only just met you."
He looked like she'd just ripped out both his hearts and stomped on them. He swallowed loudly, eyes flicking as he tried to gather his thoughts.
"We should- we should try to get out of here. See where we landed," he said. "I'll explain after."
"Okay," she said, trusting he would. He was the Doctor, of course he would.
She started to climb out of the pool and immediately plunged herself back under the water.
"Um," she said, cheeks red. "I think the Time Vortex burned off all my clothes."
Amelia Pond jumped back in shock as not one, but two people, both sopping wet, climbed out of the police box. The first was a man with floppy brown hair and a big chin. The second was a woman clothed in nothing but an oversized blue suit jacket, buttoned up but still just enough to cover her no-no zones. She had long, curly golden blonde hair and her eyes glowed in the night.
"Thank you, Santa," Amelia whispered before gathering the courage to speak to them.
The Eleventh Hour. Somehow, the crack in the wall had led Callie straight into the episode of Doctor Who called "The Eleventh Hour". It was the eleventh Doctor's first episode, and the one where he met his new companion, Amy Pond. Well, currently she was Amelia Pond, the girl with the name like a fairy tale.
And Callie was practically naked, the Doctor's suit jacket barely covering both her boobs and her crotch. Little Amelia and the Doctor were both certainly getting an eyeful of her cleavage. God, her cheeks burned at the thought.
They were sat at the kitchen table in Amelia's house as she rummaged for an apple for the Doctor.
"So, if you're a doctor, why does your box say 'police'?" Amelia asked, handing the Doctor his apple. She turned her gaze to Callie, who wanted to pull the suit jacket closer to cover up a bit more. "Are you the police?"
At the same time, the Doctor took a huge bite out of his apple and promptly spit it out onto the floor.
"Ugh," Callie said, making a face. She stood and grabbed a paper towel to clean it up.
"What is that?" The Doctor asked incredulously.
"An apple," Amelia answered.
"Apples are rubbish," the Doctor said. "I hate apples."
"But you said you loved them," Amelia reminded him. Callie through the bits of apple into the garbage bin, grumbling to herself. God, she had such a headache!
"No, I love yogurt," the Doctor stated. "Not apples. Give me yogurt."
"Oh no," Callie said sternly. She looked the Doctor in the eyes (a thrill shot up her spine, but she did her best to ignore it). "One, you're being unbelievably rude- spitting food on the floor, demanding a child give you whatever you want. You should apologize, alienboy. Secondly, you're not gonna like yogurt any more than you like apples. Sit down."
The Doctor sat, staring at her in what could only be described as awe. It made her a little uncomfortable. Shaking it off, she pointedly looked at Amelia.
"Sorry for being rude," the Doctor said dutifully. "Beginnings are always hard. It's like I forget how to act."
"It's alright," Amelia said, taking a seat across from him.
"No, it's not," Callie said. "Now, A- sweetie," she stopped herself before she used Amelia's name, as the girl hadn't yet introduced herself, "where do you keep your fish fingers?"
"In the freezer," Amelia responded.
"And your custard?"
"What?" The Doctor and Amelia spoke in unison, both sounding equally disgusted. Callie rolled her eyes.
"Just trust me."
It took her a few minutes to heat up the fish sticks and whip up the custard, but soon she set the plate and bowl in the middle of the table. Despite the grimace on his face, the Doctor took a stick and dipped it generously in the custard. He took a bite.
"Ah," he said. "That's really good."
"Really?" Amelia asked disbelievingly.
"Don't mind him," Callie said, whispering conspiratorially with the girl. "He likes all sorts of weird stuff like that."
The Doctor glowered at her playfully, but didn't say anything as he finished the fish stick in another bite. It was quiet a moment, and Callie tried to remember what happened in this episode. Where the story was going to take them. It was a little hard to remember, as it had been a couple years since her last rewatch. In high school, she knew Doctor Who like the back of her hand. But of course, now that she'd somehow fallen into the show, she couldn't trust her memory to help.
"So, what's your name?" She asked Amelia.
"Amelia Pond."
Callie's lips quirked into a smile. "Like a name from a fairytale," she said fondly.
"Brilliant name," the Doctor agreed through his food. Amelia shrugged, obviously not used to compliments.
"It's alright."
"No, it's wonderful," Callie insisted. "Isn't it, Doctor?"
"Oh yes," he agreed. He took the giant bowl of custard and drank from it. When he lowered it, he had a custard mustache, which made Callie snort.
"Funny," Amelia commented dryly as the Doctor wiped the mustache away.
"Am I? Good. Funny's good," he said. "Are we in Scotland, Amelia?"
Amelia frowned, pouting just a little. "No, we had to move to England. It's rubbish."
"I always wanted to visit England," Callie commented.
"Scotland's better," Amelia said seriously. Callie nodded gravely.
"I'll take your word for it," she responded. Amelia seemed like being taken seriously. It made Callie wonder how often she was brushed off or ignored.
"So what about your mum and dad, then?" The Doctor went on. "Are they upstairs? Thought we'd have woken them by now."
"I don't have a mum or dad. Just an aunt." Amelia wasn't sad when she said this, just matter of fact. That's what life was for her.
"Where's your aunt, then?" Callie asked.
"Out."
"And she left you all alone?" The Doctor asked. Amelia bristled.
"I'm not scared."
"That's not the point," Callie said, feeling a little heated. She hated thinking of Amelia- Amy- being neglected like this. "It's not safe for a kid to be left home alone all night. Anything could happen. I mean look- you invited two strangers who fell out of the sky into your house! You're brave, but that's not a safe thing to do, Amelia."
Amelia swallowed hard. "Do your eyes always glow like that?" She sounded- not scared, but a little wary.
Callie breathed out a confused, "What?" at the same time the Doctor said, "Yes."
Callie's head snapped towards the Doctor. "What?!"
"Did you not know?" Amelia asked. Panicked, Callie ran from the room and into the hall until she stumbled upon a mirror in the entryway. She let out a loud cry as she took her appearance in. The woman in the mirror looked nothing like her. And yes, her eyes were glowing bright gold.
The woman in the mirror- Callie's reflection- was shorter and slimmer than Callie had always known herself to be. She supposed this explained why Ten's suit jacket was large on her, but the horror of seeing someone else in her reflection clouded that thought out of her brain. Her hair was different; she still had the same wild curls, but her hair was longer and a golden blonde, though the exact shade was undetermined as it was still wet. Her eyes were glowing gold, though later she would find out that they were now a cinnamon color whenever they didn't glow, and that they only glowed when she was highly emotional.
It was like the Time Vortex had burned Callie away and left a different person in her midst.
"Callie." The Doctor appeared behind her in the mirror.
"That's not me," she whispered, horrified. "That's not me!"
"It is," the Doctor said. "This is how I've always known you, I promise. I- I don't understand what's happened, but I guess this is your first time meeting me. This is all so new for you."
"First time...?" Callie whirled around to face him head on. "Doctor, before today you were a fictional character! What the hell is going on?"
"It's a really long story," the Doctor said, "and with Amelia..."
Amelia. Callie had almost forgotten the young girl standing in the doorway, looking so unsure.
"Sorry," Callie said. "I didn't mean to freak out. This has been a big day." She let out a little laugh, hoping to put Amelia at ease.
"Sorry I asked about your eyes," Amelia said. Callie shook her head quickly.
"No, no, no! Don't be sorry. It's just- You're just so much braver than me, Amelia."
"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, "you're not scared of anything. Box falls out of the sky, two strangers fall out of the box, man eats fish custard, and look at you. You're just fine. So, you know what I think?" He looked from Amelia to Callie and back.
"What?" Amelia asked. The Doctor looked to Callie. Callie looked back blankly until the Doctor gave her a little nudge.
"Oh! Um, well, it must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall," she said, barely remembering the line from the show. "So, let's go and have a look, yeah?"
Amelia nodded, determined. She led the way up the stairs. The Doctor quickly slipped his hand into Callie's and followed behind. Callie frowned, looking at their hands together. Normally, the Doctor only held hands when there was running to be done. This was weird.
God, this whole day was weird. And Callie's head hurt.
Halfway up the second flight of steps, Callie's headache exploded, golden light blinded her, and she tripped.
"Callie?" The Doctor's voice was faint, muffled. Callie's head spun. "Oh, Callie. I haven't even gotten to explain."
"Explainnn what?" Callie asked, her voice slurred. "Ghhh, it hurtsss, Doctorrr."
"I'm sorry," was all he had time to say before Callie's vision was nothing but gold light and she was gone.
The Doctor sighed, staring at the space Callie had just stood. A light dusting of golden energy lay on the steps, all that was left of her for now. He wondered where she would end up, but with his brain so muddled from the regeneration, he couldn't remember if she was going backwards in his timeline or not.
"She disappeared!" Amelia said, sounding more shocked and awed than she had all night. The Doctor nodded. "Where did she go?"
"Somewhere far, far away," he said tightly. No matter how many times she jumped, it was always hard to watch her go. Especially when they were in the middle of an adventure. He shook his head and clapped his hands together once. "Nevermind. She'll be back sometime. Now, let's have a look at that crack, eh?"
