LSATB

Chapter 2: The Next Day

7:30 the next morning, John woke and felt a sense of déjà vu at the peculiarity of his morning ritual.

No need to wake up, John thought tiredly as he slumped back into bed. Saturday. I hate Saturday mornings, almost as much as Monday mornings… the whole of Mondays, actually. And Thursday afternoons… He let himself fall back to sleep.

John sat at the kitchen table, staring intently at the patterns in it with a frown, as his fingers tapped on the ceramic cup he held.

"I wonder what happened to the security guards?" Mickey pondered as he came into the kitchen, sitting at the table with a far-off expression in his eyes. "I mean, why couldn't they've done somefin'? 'Oo blew i'up, ya suppose?"

"I dunno, Mickey," John replied tiredly. "Look, could ya just drop it? I just wanna…" A rattling skittering sort of sound came from the door, and John stood to find out what had caused. "I thought you said you nailed the cat flap down, Mickey?"

"I did," Mickey replied, looking confused. John knelt near the flap and picked up the nails that had popped out and frowned. The cat flap shuddered again, to his surprise.

"Huh?" John mumbled, lowering his body more to look at the flap, then he prodded it with his finger before jerking back to avoid what might jump through. Nothing came. He reached out quickly and pushed it all the way open.

It was the girl from before, her blue eyes frowning at him, that girl who called herself… the Doctor, wasn't it?

"Wh-," he stood quickly and opened the door.

"What're you doing here?" she asked, narrowing her eyes up at him.

"I live here," John blinked back.

"Well what'd you do that for?"

"'Cuz I do…" he watched her wriggle that strange silvery-blue light-y thing out of her leather jacket inside pocket and lighting it in the air.

"Must be the wrong signal," she frowned. "You're not plastic, are you?" she reached up and unceremoniously knocked on his forehead. "Nope, bone 'ead, bye then!" She smiled cheerfully, the emotion not quite reaching those sarcastic eyes, before trying to dash off.

"Wait a minute," John grabbed her by the arm, feeling she owed him some sort of explanation. Especially as to why she kept popping up recently.

"'Oo is it?" Mickey called.

"No one," John replied loud enough for Mickey to hear. "Just… no one. Go to your job, it's what they pay you for, right?"

"Don't mind the mess," John straightened up a little as he bustled past Mickey, ignoring the look Mickey was giving him, the 'oh, WOW!' look. "Do you want coffee?"

"Might at well, just milk, thanks," she breezed into his living room, flipping through the magazines with a concentrated look on her face, an expression half of disbelief and half humored.

"Would the police help, d'ya think?" John frowned as he pulled the coffee machine closer and dumped in a couple scoops.

"Huh, that won't last," the girl remarked to herself with a scoff, throwing down the magazine. "He's gay and she's an alien."

"I'm not blaming you," John continued, pulling out the sugar for himself. "Even if it was some sort of joke that just went wrong…"

"Hm, sad ending," the girl flipped through a book and set it down again before picking up an envelope from the desk with a smirk.

"It said on the news, they found a body…"

"John Smith." She enunciated, feeling the way her new tongue pressed against her new teeth for the sounds. She happened to glance in the mirror as she looked up. "Eh, coulda been worse, lookit the hair!" she ran a hand across the punkish spiked jet black hair, cropped close to her head.

"…he was a nice bloke, I'll bet. I mean, I didn't know him personally…"

She looked down again and saw cards, "If luck be a lady," she sang a little, grinning to herself in a childish sort of way as she shuffled the cards.

"…anyways, if we do go to the police, I wanna know what I'm saying…"

She shuffled the cards from one hand to another, just messing around to see if she had any new abilities she just picked up.

"I want you to explain everything, seeing as I barely knew what was going on and, well, obviously I can't tell anyone what really happened…" John began rambling, as per norm.

"Oops," she muttered as the cards flew from her hand and scattered all about, frowning to herself a little at the inconvenience. Card tricks were obviously not a new skill. "Maybe not."

The skittering sound of something crawling across the wooden floor interrupted the girl's thoughts as she turned to face it.

"What was that then?" she asked loudly, crossing the room. "You got a cat?"

"No," John frowned to himself as she peered over the couch and had little time to counter the hand clamping onto her neck as it flew up at her. "We did have, but… used to get strays off the Estate…" John came in with both coffees and sighed at what looked like a playful, pretend struggle with the arm.

"Told Mickey to chuck that out," he sighed, glancing at the girl besieged with the arm. "Honestly, give an idiot a plastic arm," John muttered. "Not that I'm calling you an idiot, just, really? It's rather childish… anyways, I don't even know your name... Doctor…? What was it?" The girl threw the arm off with a grunt and it flew at John, as if it had wings, and clamped onto his face.

"Got it!" the girl leapt off the couch and began yanking on it, with little avail. She let out a frustrated snort and, pulling out her glow stick, waved it at the arm. It tightened, than fell off, revealing John's pale face under it.

"There you go, see?" she grinned. "'Armless." She tossed him the arm.

"D'ya think?" John rolled his eyes, gruffly whacking her with it on the shoulder.

"Ow," she frowned, rubbing her shoulder through the thick leather, but there was a playful smirk hidden behind the frown.

"Hold on a minute, you can't just go swanning off!" John tumbled down the apartment steps after her; she was amazingly fast and agile, as if used to running and avoiding things.

"Yes I can, here I am, this is me, swanning off," she grinned back up at him, waved the arm as she ran down the stairs. "See ya!"

"That arm was moving; it tried to kill me!" Again, John thought.

"Ten outta ten for observation," was her only dry remark.

"You can't just walk away, that's not fair!" What was fair, anyways? "You gotta tell me what's going on."

"No I don't!" Now she was just avoiding him. They pushed out of the apartments into the street.

"Alright then, I'll go to the police, I'll tell everyone," John knew he was pulling out his weakest card, but it was the only one he had right now. "You said if I did that I'd get people killed. So, your choice. Tell me or, I'll start talking."

"S'at supposed to sound tough?" she spared him a glance, an amused one.

"Sort of…?"

"Doesn't work," she kept walking.

"Who are you?" John tried another avenue, maybe he could work his way around in the conversation to ask her. He was quite good at talking.

"Told ya, the Doctor."

"Yeah, but Doctor what?"

"Just the Doctor." Who named their kid 'The Doctor'? Didn't that sound super pretentious? 'This is my son, Luke Hammerstein.' 'Well this is my son; you can just call him the Doctor. Never mind he's not actually a doctor yet, just call him that.'

"The Doctor?" John asked dubiously.

"Hullo!" she waved a hand with a cheery smile and John repressed a laugh, but it came out as a sort of giggle.

"Is that supposed to sound impressive?"

"Sort of," she agreed, nodding.

"C'mon then," John caught up by her side. "Tell me?" He used the puppy eyes his mother had always sworn would get him anything he liked with the right girls. He had never wanted to use them so badly before. "I've seen a lot. Are you the police?"

"No," she scoffed a little. "I was just… passing through. I'm a long way from 'ome."

"Well what've I done wrong?" John stuck his hands in his pockets, frowning to himself. "How come those plastic things keep coming after me?"

"Oh! Suddenly the entire world revolves around you?" she asked incredulously. "You were just an accident; you just got in the way, that's all."

"It tried to kill me!"

"He was after me, not you!" She sounded like she wanted it to only come after her, expected everything to only be about her. John smiled a little to himself at that realization. "Last night, in the shop, I was there, you blundered in - almost ruined the whole thing - this morning I was tracking it down it was tracking me down… The only reason it fixed on you was because you met me!"

"So what you're saying is, the entire world, revolves around you?" John smiled, unable to keep from laughing at this a little.

"Sort of, yeah," she grinned.

"You're full of it," John shook his head with a light chuckle.

"Sort of, yeah," she admitted cheerily.

"But, all this plastic stuff, who else knows about it?"

"No one," her voice got hard as they turned onto another street.

"What, you're on your own?"

"Well who else is there? I mean, you lot all you do is eat chips, go to bed and watch telly! While all the time, underneath yeh, there's a war going on!" What war? John stared at her, than easily grabbed the arm from her unsuspecting hand.

"Alright them, tell me. Start from the beginning."