A gasp of mixed wonder and fear wrenched from her throat as she looked around the enormous, cavernous room lying in wait before her, arching and whirling up to meet at a central column of glass and a round mechanism at its base, covered in devices she had never seen before in all her life. It was like falling into one of her dreams, but a thousand times more magnificent than her insubstantial imagination could ever supply.

"Oh, hello there, and how did you get in?" came a cheery voice over Margaret's shoulder. She swung around to see a man in a tweed jacket and bow-tie grinning at her. She jumped back and pulled her father's pistol to aim. With eyes significantly wider than a moment before, the man held up his hands defensively, back pressed against the door to the strange, magical box. "Now, let's not get trigger-happy in the TARDIS! She doesn't like it."

"Who are you?" asked Margaret in favor of wondering what on earth this man was talking about. Then, because she couldn't quite help herself, she added, "What is this device? You called it a...a TARDIS?"

The man nodded, brown hair falling down into his eyes, and she wondered for the briefest moment why he hadn't combed it back before remembering that society had rather collapsed in the past four days. "That's right, a Type 40 TARDIS, actually, but no need to get technical. I'm the Doctor. Now how did you get in?" he asked, scrutinizing her, almost sizing her up in a way that felt all at once unnerving and completely un-threatening.

Margaret couldn't help her helpless little shrug. "I fell in? I don't know, I leaned against the door and it opened! Why does the sign say: 'Pull to Open,' if the door opens by pushing on it? Someone could get hurt."

"Yes, tentacle monsters are taking over the world, the necessary technology to fight them is in here, but you're worried about someone opening a door improperly," frowned the strange doctor. He didn't look like any doctor she'd ever seen before. He was quite...elastic. "Will you please put down your gun?"

Oh. She'd almost forgotten about it. Dropping it to her side, she kept a watchful eye on the doctor as he did a circuit around her and jumped up onto the center platform. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" asked the doctor over his shoulder, so Margaret watched. He pulled levers, spun dials, pressed buttons, and fiddled with something that looked like a straining spoon.

She blinked at him. "It looks like you've gone mad. Have I fallen underground?"

"Underground?"

"Yes, underground," she repeated, slightly annoyed now. "This Police Box or TARDIS or whatever you would like to call it, appears to be very small when looking from the outside."

The doctor spun on his heel and leaned against his strange device, bumping one last lever with his elbow, and smirked. "You fell in the door?"

"Yes."

"And you think we're underground?"

"Yes."

"Then how could the door be behind you?"

Margaret turned and looked at the door, only slightly ajar, but wide enough for a small shaft of light to come though. She pulled it open (still slightly irked that the sign had been wrong) and peered out, quite plainly finding the outer parameters of the little box to be, well, little. And yet on the inside it was massive? "Is this some sort of illusion?" she shrewdly asked.

The strange doctor grinned. "Nope. It's bigger on the inside. Dimensionally transcendent, if you'd like."

It felt as though she had been slapped in the face of this man's giddiness. Why was he so cheerful when there were people outside dying? "Are you in league with the monster?" she asked next, hand tightening protectively around her gun.

"No!" The doctor threw up his hands again. "No, no, why would I be in league with that thing? All legs, no face? Nasty! Of course not! I like things that can dance a bit, y'know." He accentuated this with a wiggle of his legs. "Now," he continued, stepping entirely too far into Margaret's personal space, "this seems like it's a bit much for you to swallow all at once; perhaps you should run along home to your mum, eh?" He grinned again, but this time with deep lines around his eyes that made such a young face look very, very old.

Taking a deep breath, Margaret forced herself not to look bothered. "My mother is dead, taken by the beast, and my home is destroyed." The doctor's face fell, and he looked so very sad that she again was confused as to his true age. Surely a man so young should not seem so old?

A smile cracked through his frown for an instant, looking almost spasmodic in its brevity. "What's your name?" he asked then. Margaret swallowed carefully.

"Margaret Moss, si-"

"Margaret Moss? That's brilliant!" laughed the doctor suddenly, breaking out into an expression of childish glee. "You sound like a-! Ah, well, like a...a superhero."

"A what?"

"Er, never mind. Follow me, Maggie Moss." dismissed the doctor, grabbing a most unusual metal wand sort of device and walking out of his dimen-dimensially-something-transcendent box with his grin dissolved once again. Goodness, but he had mood-swings like a girl!

She had to skip a bit to catch up with his long stride, before matching his pace, taking the wide steps of a man. It felt comfortable in a very queer, masculine way. "My name is Margaret, not-"

"What's wrong with Maggie Moss? Maggie's brilliant!" the doctor very nearly pouted. "Not to mention, it's faster and easier to say, so if the need arises I can shout 'Maggie, there's a tentacle coming for you!' one-point-seven seconds more quickly than if I were saying 'Margaret.' That one-point-seven could save your life." He clapped his hands and took on a businesslike air. "Now, there are a few rules if you're going to help me, Maggie. Rule one: don't wander off. Rule two: don't ask questions if you think you can get the answer yourself. Rule three-" He stopped and took her shoulders in his hands. "When I say 'run,' you run, do you hear me?"

It was very trying to breathe properly with a strange man so very near and speaking so gravely. "I don't even know your name," she protested, shrugging away from him.

A hint of a smirk returned to his lips. "I told you, I'm the Doctor."

"That's your name? Just Doctor? You had very unusual parents. Beg pardon," she added hastily, but the Doctor was chuckling. "And who says I'm going to help you?"

The stubborn smirk widened confidently. "Haven't you ever dreamed of flight, Maggie?" he asked. "Or of anything exciting at all?"

Her words. Those had been her exact words to John Thomas four days ago, and the Doctor was echoing them back at her as though they'd been his idea. She wondered if that meant something important.

"Of course I have," she replied softly, and then they were off to fight a monster.