Hi. Writer's Block. It has happened. Lucky for you, this means new chapter. Unlucky for me, this means extra time writing my article... Enjoy and review if you would like; thanks to everyone who has reviewed and added this story to their favorites/watch lists. I'm flattered!
There really was no reason for it to happen, but it did. Things don't need reasons. They need a nice combination of chance, change, and circumstance to take control.
Abriel was asleep in her bed, which was actually a couch. There was bedroom, but it had been converted into Abiel's studio. In place of a bed, which had been given to her brother in return for helping her move in, there were easels and boxes and so many art supplies it would be nearly impossible to organize and label everything if she were to move. Canvases lined walls, white sheets hanging and ready to be painted upon or used as backdrops. In order to keep the rest of the small house clean, the art supplies and art process was not allowed in any other room but that room. There was a kitchen, a bathroom, a living rom and the art room. That was all, but it was all she needed. Living alone didn't require much.
Wrapped in a blue comforter, the thing old and loosing it's stuffing from one corner and some parts speckled with paint (it sometimes got cold in the studio and she was forced to wrap everything but her painting arm), Abriel's chest rose and fell in a steady tempo. The kitten, Smookie, rested on her feet on top of her master's feet, curled up at the end of the couch. There were bars of yellow light streaming in through a gap in the curtains from the streetlights, running across the floor to touch the tip of the cat's tail. There wasn't a car, not a bird, not even an insect. The world, at least as far as Turnaping Street to Dohpal Avenue, was quiet. If anyone had been awake, it would have been remarked upon as unusual. But no one was awake. That was what was most unusual.
That was why, at 1:02 in the morning, a blue telephone box appeared in Abriel's living room.
The cat hissed and it's tail puffed out, unhappy with the blinking light at the top of the mysterious rectangle. Once the blinking stopped and the door opened, Smookie crept across the length of her master's body and nuzzled her under the chin, as if to say, "Wake up, you have a visitor." The visitor in question, brown coat and ruffled hair swaying as he walked, stepped swiftly to the side of the couch after taking a quick look around the room. Softly, as not to startle her, the Doctor covered her mouth and shook her shoulder, muffling the scream he expected. Instead, Abriel opened her eyes, which widened for only a moment, and there was a flicker of recognition that quickly turned into a flame.
"Quiet," he said as Abriel opened her mouth. "Just quiet. Come with me."
"Um-"
"Shh."
"If I'm coming with you," Abriel snapped as soon as the Doctor's hand was off her mouth, "I'm bringing clothes. Where are we going?"
All she got was an eyeroll and approval from the strange man in her living room to get off the couch and to pack up. "Hurry, you don't have much more than a minute. We've got to leave. Now!"
The Doctor didn't even turn around on his way back to the Tardis; he just pointed to dismiss her and kept his back turned as Abriel wrapped herself in her comforter and hurried to the bathroom. She wasn't going to dare mention she was practically in nothing but a pair of old yoga pants. Flipping on the light, she found a tank top laying haphazardly by the sink and, throwing that on, proceeded to stuff a laundry bag with clothes. Pulling random things out of drawers and swiping things out of cupboards, it took Abriel less than a minute to pack. She reappeared in her living room and the Doctor turned around at the sound of her footsteps, which were hardly audible on the carpeted floor. Abriel tossed the comforter on the couch, which was also folded and ready to go, and faced the Doctor.
"What's that?" he asked, pointing almost accusingly at the bag, which hardly came up to Abriel's knee. "That's a little bigger than I expected you to bring along."
"You call this big?" Abriel asked, raising an eyebrow before saying softly "I have a feeling I won't be coming back for a little while."
"How can you possibly know that?" was the answer from the man who was now fidgeting in the doorway, anxious to go. "Now, get in."
"Don't ask me to explain what I can't find words to," Abriel said very seriously before turning and scooping Smookie under her arm. The Doctor silently protested, mouth moving but no sound coming out. The look on Abriel's face, the mingled emotions daring him to take her cat away.
"If I come, the cat comes, too. And the blanket, " she said, adjusting the kitten and the bag so she could still carry her roughly folded comforter.
"Oh, come on, then," the Doctor said, waving his arm and striding through the doors of his flying machine. Abriel followed, not knowing where she was going or what she was about to do, but followed in the strange man's footsteps, not knowing that the Doctor wasn't a man at all.
"You have no reason to ask where we are going? Trust me that much, do you?" the Doctor asked, sarcasm pulling at Abriel's nerves. The young woman dropped her luggage in an appropriate corner and let the kitten out of her arms to run around the control room of the giant flying machine.
"I believe I've already tried to ask and you told me to go pack."
"Well, now that you're packed, you're not going to ask me again?"
As Abriel wandered around the operations panel of the Tardis, the Doctor shut the door of his precious vehicle and watched his new passengers with a keen eye. The orange and yellow lighting, mingled with the blues and purples of control lights, cast shadows made of rainbows across Abriel and her curious kitten. As Abriel turned, she saw the mysterious man looking at her with lowered, concerned eyebrows and a piercing gaze. He looked angry, tired, and very ambitious all in the same moment.
"You're not even going to ask why you're here? Why I chose you? What is going on that involves you to such a point you need-"
"Is this a spaceship?" Abriel asked, interupting him and going back to her task of absorbing every detail of where she was. "How did you just appear in my living room? Does it just appear and disappear? Or does it go so fast normal people can't see it?"
Rubbing his forehead and stepping over the tattered blanket his guest had brought with her, avoiding running over the kitten in his haste to pull Abriel's hand away from one of the mechanisms that would launch the Tardis through the wall of her own house, the Doctor took Abriel away forcibly from the control panel.
"If you would be so kind as to not touch anything, we can get on our way." The Doctor was nearing the end of his hope this girl would be the one he could work with to save her species. As an afterthought, he added, "Are you what humans call a 'blond?'"
Abriel, picking up the kitten and standing far enough back from the Doctor so she wouldn't be accidentally hit by a flailing arm as he zoomed around the control panel and hit buttons and flipped switches, smirked.
"I've gotten that one before," she said without a hint of malice or amusement. "Yes, I have blond hair, but, no, I'm not stupid. And you mean you're not human? You look human..."
"What's with the lack of concern? The yelling, the demands of why you're being taken away in the middle of the night by a man you don't know in a machine that can go anywhere or do anything? Usually that's what all of them do, at least, the ones I've taken away in the middle of the night."
The Doctor froze, his hand hovering over a lever, looking at Abriel, who was petting the purring kittten and looking straight back at him.
"Because you've saved my life before and I don't think you would put it in jepoardy after you went through all that trouble. Demanding answers and panicking over things I don't understand isn't like me. I think you'll explain when you need to, about what is all going on here."
The Doctor's face cleared, his eyebrows unfurling and his mouth widening the slightest bit as his hand slowly dropped to rest on the great green knob in front of him. A blue light rested over his face, distorting his features, clarifying them. His body was relaxed, yet poised for flight, bent forward until he straightened slowly as he asked Abriel a question.
"You trust me? You only met me once, during a moment of mortal peril, and you trust me? You have no idea where you're going or what is happening and you trust me to take you anywhere I want to go?"
Abriel nodded, chin bobbing up and down, wondering what this man had in store for her.
"I trust you."
"You shouldn't have said that," the Doctor said, smiling wide, "You might not trust me after we come up with a plan to save Earth."
And he pulled the lever, sending the Tardis into the deep reaches of space, out of Abriel's living room and into places she had never imagined existed.
Yup, well that was the chapter. Needless to say, Abriel will be having more talks with The Doctor, not revolving around her luggage or why she isn't overly worked up about being stolen away in the middle of the night. If I was working on this story as an actual project, I would have gone more in depth about why Abriel doesn't mind this whole "let us save the world" ordeal she is about to be put through and why the Doctor seems so bitter. (Again, I absolutely swear Abriel isn't a Mary Sue. I haven't been getting complaints about her, but let us just hint, I mean, mention that any love interest the Doctor has is going to come from an actual character in the actual series). Okay, thanks for reading and let me know what you think if you would like to... Happy Reading (and waiting) until my next writer's block.