She giggled slightly as she watched him run around the console, trying to press practically all of the buttons at once.
"Oi! Don't laugh! There's supposed to be six people piloting this thing and if you're not going to help then it's all up to me!" She smirked.
"Well first of all she's not a 'thing,' treat her with a little respect," The TARDIS hummed in agreement. "-and second of all, I'm not helping you because it's funny to watch you scramble around and try to do it all yourself." The Doctor groaned as she made fun of him.
"But it's so much easier when you help me," he complained childishly. She stood from the captain's seat, and walked over to him before patronizingly patting his head.
"There there," she said, like a mother consoling a child. He rolled his eyes.
"You flew her perfectly well before you ever met me," she said to him.
The way she said 'before you ever met me,' as opposed to saying 'before we ever met,' only stood to remind him of their warped relationship, one person always knowing more about the other than the other knows about them.
She noticed the frown on his face.
"What's wrong?" He snapped out of his thoughts, and turned around to fiddle with some of the controls.
"Nothing, nothing's wrong," he said, trying to cover up what he had been thinking about. She didn't buy it for a second.
"Doctor, tell me what's wrong." He paused his actions, before turning around with a sigh and facing her.
"I just-" he stopped. He knew that it wasn't fair to blame her for what always happened when they met. It wasn't her fault. But he still couldn't help but wish it could be different.
"You just wish that I could stay with you," she murmured, saying exactly what he was thinking. "You know it can't be that way."
He looked into her eyes. Those beautiful, beautiful eyes. She searched his face for a clue, a hint, anything, desperately hoping that he wasn't really thinking what she thought he was thinking. And then she found it. All of the evidence she needed, right in the broken look that he let flash across his face for a split second.
"I'm sorry, but I-"
"It's not my fault that it happens." He glanced away for a moment, before looking back to her.
"I know, I just-"
"I didn't ask for this. I didn't ask to be torn from my life and thrown into this!" He grabbed her shoulders and looked into her eyes.
"I know, and I'm sorry, I truly am, but I just feel like . . . I feel like you deserve so much more. You have earned so much more than what you've gotten, and I hate to watch you go." His voice broke slightly. "Every time I watch you leave I know that I may never see you again, and I just . . . It hurts so much, to think that every time might be the last."
She looked into his eyes, searching for any sign of insincerity, and upon finding nothing, she pulled him into a hug, engulfing him in her calming embrace.
"It's not your fault, it's never your fault," he murmured into her ear.
"I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
The Doctor was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of someone speaking to him.
"Huh? What?" Lilly smiled awkwardly.
"I said 'I'm sorry.'" The Doctor turned to face her, while at the same time he fiddled with a random control on the console.
"What for?"
"Well, when I used your sonic screwdriver to fix the plane, you gave me this- this weird look." He raised an eyebrow. "I don't really know what that look meant, so I'm just apologizing, in case I did something wrong," Lilly explained. The Doctor nodded in understanding.
"No no no, you're fine. You were great! You did great!" Lilly smiled, although it wasn't completely an honest smile. She could tell that something was still bothering the Doctor.
"Oh, by the way, I don't believe we've been formally introduced." He held out a hand, before saying:
"Hello, I'm the Doctor." She took his hand.
"Lilly Morgan. Nice to meet you, Doctor." The Doctor looked as though he was about to say something more when Clara interrupted them.
"Okay, when are you going to explain to me what the hell is going on?" Lilly smiled.
"Well, I believe you were there for the whole 'saving the plane' bit." She began to speak again, before her eyebrows furrowed. "Wait a second, you never explained, how exactly is this connected to the Wifi? When are you going to explain that bit?" The Doctor gave then a sneaky smile.
"How about at breakfast?" He asked, before pulling a lever and causing the whole ship to shake. Clara nearly fell over, and Lilly just barely managed to catch her.
With a quick thanks, Clara set out after the Doctor as he headed to the doors.
"What? I ain't waiting till breakfast!" She exclaimed. The Doctor paused just before exiting the ship, and he turned around to face the two girls.
"It's a time machine. You never have to wait for breakfast." Lilly's eyes widened.
Seriously, time travel?! This has been such a crazy day.
The Doctor turned around and opened the doors. Sunlight poured into the ship, along with the sound of a crowd cheering.
"Thank you, thank you!" The Doctor exclaimed as he sauntered out of the space-time machine. Lilly shared a glance with Clara before rushing out of the ship, grabbing her friend's hand as she did so.
"Yes, magic blue box! All donations gratefully accepted. Roll up! Roll up! Give us your dosh." A fez that Lilly hadn't seen him carry out of the ship was suddenly in his hand as she exited the police box, but she just brushed it off as another strange thing about this man.
"Oh, pennies, pounds, anything you've got. Keep collecting, we need enough for breakfast." Something seemed to occur to him, as he quickly turned around to head back towards the spaceship.
"Just popping back to the garage." He walked back into the ship, and it took Clara a moment before she commented, confused.
"Garage?" Lilly's eyebrows furrowed.
"Doctor? What do you mean by 'garage?'"
Clara looked back around, still a little mesmerized by the fact it was suddenly daytime.
"So this is it? Tomorrow's come early, then."
"No, it came at the usual time, we just took a short cut." The Doctor rode out of the spaceship on a motorbike, and Lilly grinned.
I swear, this man is such a show off.
The crowd started applauding. "Thank you, thank you!" The Doctor exclaimed. "Tomorrow, a camel!" Lilly's eyes widened.
"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep, Doctor." He looked to her.
"Who says I can't keep it?" Lilly was about to make a remark, when she noticed something.
"Uh, Doctor, there's only enough space on that motorbike for two people. Do you have another, by any chance?" The Doctor smiled.
"As a matter of fact I do." And he then proceeded to give her the most obscure directions imaginable. She tilted her head, much in the manner of a confused dog, but he just waved her off.
"The TARDIS will show you."
"What's the TARDIS?"
"That's the name of my ship- well, really just the species – but anyway she's called the TARDIS. It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. She'll show you the way." Lilly grinned.
"Okay, I'll be right back." With that, she ran into the TARDIS.
Hello! Could you show me the way to the motorbike the Doctor was talking about? She noticed a corridor light up, and she placed a hand on the wall.
Thank you. She set off down the hallway, moving as fast as she could to get to the room with the motorbike. She didn't want to keep them waiting.
It took her not even a minute to find it, and she quickly wheeled it back into the console room. She strapped on her helmet and exited the TARDIS, being careful to close the door behind her.
"Ah, there you are, we thought you might have gotten lost!" Clara joked. Lilly feigned a hurt expression, pressing her hand to her heart.
"Clara how could you?" She said dramatically. "You have wounded me." The Doctor rolled his eyes.
"Oh come on, it's breakfast time and we need to get to a less-crowded place."
Remembering the killer-wifi, Lilly quickly got on her motorbike, and rolled it up next to the Doctor's.
"Ready?" Lilly nodded.
"Here we go!" And with that, they were off.
The wind was whipping Lilly's hair in every direction, but she didn't care. It was just another thing she enjoyed; the freeing feeling of riding a motorbike without a care in the world. Well- except, you know, she wasn't exactly care-free at the moment because there were still people out there that were after her best friend and possible-friend for some reason.
But until it was brought back up, she was going to ignore that. Because after all, why would she want to waste a perfectly good opportunity to learn more about this amazing man?
Not long later, they were all sitting down at a table outside of a café. The Doctor and Clara managed to get Lilly all caught up on what had happened before she showed up outside of Clara's house.
"So if we can travel anywhere in time and space, why did we travel to the morning? What's the point in that?" Clara asked, after they had finished explaining everything to Lilly.
"Whoever's after us spent the whole night looking for us. Are you tired?" He answered, not looking up from the laptop.
"Yes," Clara responded. He peered up at her, sitting back in his chair. Lilly sipped her coffee as she watched the exchange.
"Well, then imagine how they feel. They came the long way 'round." The Doctor went back to typing on the computer as he finished his sentence. "They've got to be close. Definitely London, going by the signal distribution. I can hack the lowest level of their operating system, but I can't establish a physical location, their security's too good."
"Are you an alien?" Lilly gave Clara an 'are you serious' look at the sudden change of topic.
"I am," he responded, not missing a beat. "Yes, okay with that?"
"Fine, yeah." He looked to Lilly. She was drinking her coffee, so she settled for a thumbs up.
"I think I'm fine," Clara continued. "So what happens if you do find them? What happens then?"
Lilly placed her coffee down on the table.
"I've been wondering that too. I mean, we can't just go in and tell them to let everyone go, and we can't go in and fight them for it." Lilly grimaced slightly at the thought of fighting people. She was capable of it, she was fit and athletic enough, but she had never liked the idea of violence.
"I don't know what we'll do. I can't tell the future, I just work there." Lilly didn't miss the glance he sent her way as he said this.
Clara gave him a disbelieving look. "You don't have a plan."
"Oh, you know what I always say about plans?"
"What?" Lilly asked at the same time as Clara. They shared a smile just as the Doctor answered their question.
"I don't have one."
"People always have plans," Clara replied, before taking a drink of her smoothie. The Doctor gave her a look, almost as if he was trying to decipher something from the way she was acting, or maybe even the way she was speaking, but it was gone soon enough, replaced by a small, see-through smile as he leaned back in his chair.
"Yes. Yes, I suppose they do. So tell me, how long have you been looking after those kids?" He closed the laptop as Clara answered.
"About a year, since their mum died."
"Okay." The Doctor looked out at the scenery around them before asking his next question:
"Why you? Family friend, I get that, but there must have been others. Why did it have to be you? I mean you don't really seem like a nanny." Lilly arched an eyebrow at the slightly particular question, and she moved to take a sip of her coffee before noticing the cup was empty. She was about to say something about it when Clara reached across the table and grabbed the laptop.
"Gimme." The Doctor latched on to it.
"Ha!" He pulled it back. "Sorry. What?" Clara leaned across the table.
"You need to know where they physically are, their exact location?"
"Yes," he responded. Clara snatched the laptop away from him.
"I can do it." The Doctor reached out an arm like a toddler trying to get back their toy.
"Oi, hang on, I need that."
"You hacked the lower operating system, yeah? I'll have their physical location in under five minutes. Pop off and get us a coffee."
The Doctor tried to pull back the laptop.
"If I can't find them you definitely can't."
She pulled it back.
"They uploaded me, remember? I've got computer stuff in my head!"
"So do I."
"I have insane hacking skills."
"I'm from space and the future with two hearts and . . . twenty-seven brains."
"And I can find them in under five minutes, plus photographs. Twenty-seven?"
"Okay- slight exaggeration."
"Coffee. Go get. Five minutes, I promise." The Doctor gave her what could only be described as a pouty face, before checking his watch and trying to disprove her once again.
"The security is absolute."
"It's never about the security. It's about the people." Her fingers flew over the keyboard, and the Doctor began to pout once more. He stood up, but as he began to walk away he turned to face Clara once more.
"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" She questioned as he looked down at her.
"Sorry, no, it's nothing. It's just . . . you're a nanny. Isn't that a bit, well, Victorian?"
Clara arched an eyebrow.
"Victorian?"
"Well you're young. Shouldn't you be doing, you know- with the young things-" At this point in the conversation he started dancing terribly, trying to indicate to Clara what she could've been doing with her life instead of being a nanny.
"-with – with young people?"
"What, you mean like you, for instance?" Clara questioned. "Down boy."
"No, no," he started, trying to make amends. "I didn't- oh, shut up!"
And with that he walked away from Clara, who was already buried in hacking the security, leaving no one to notice the empty chair beside his own, right where Lilly should have been.
Hello again dear readers, and thank you for reading through the second chapter of this story! I'd like to apologize for the crappy quality of this chapter. I wrote it when I was a little sleepy, so it's not at all at the best it could be.
Also, I'd like to apologize for any mistakes I might have made regarding the names for objects/places. I don't speak British-English myself, so any mistakes that I made regarding the different names for certain things (Ex: motorcycle = motorbike) are completely my fault and I apologize for that.
Next chapter I'll try to not only give Lilly a little more 'screen time,' but I'll also try to make the Author's Note shorter. So anyway, thank you for reading!