ALIEN IN THE ALLEY
That's how it started, Hope Lightfoot and the Doctor.
Back then, if someone had told her that she'd be travelling through time and space with an alien with two hearts in a spaceship that looked like a police box but that was bigger on the inside... Well, they wouldn't even finish that sentence, because Hope would have turned around and walked away, outraged that they were trying to make a fool of her.
And yet, there she was.
"Hold on, Hope!" screamed the Doctor, as he fumbled with the TARDIS console and everything around them spun and quacked.
"That's all I've been doing!" she screamed back, holding on to the nearest railing for dear life.
And down they went through the Time Vortex, onto their next adventure.
"What do you mean, a scout?" she insisted, fishing out one of the few words she understood from the man's long speech about how mailboxes were going to take over the world and everything depended on Hope pointing the threatening thing that grabbed her hair to him.
She still wasn't sure why she didn't just burst into laughter and walked away from him. Maybe it was the bow tie. Maybe it was out of desperation. God knows how desperate she was. Hope was supposed to be in Istanbul by now. And yet, she was stuck in London, jobless and almost penniless.
Great way to prove yourself to your family, Hope Lightfoot. Just great, she thought to herself.
"It's kind of a spy robot, see... a cyberscout! Like a scout, but cybermen-made" he tried to explain, while walking fast paced in front of her and meddling with his pen-thingy. She didn't understand a word he said. "I shouldn't even be telling you that, it's like, top-secret, my eyes only, ASAP..." he mumbled, very focused on his little prop. "But it doesn't matter, really, nobody ever believes me anyway" he quickly turned to her and smiled "But everyone has been very helpful".
Like me, she thought.
Hope stopped at a street corner and watched him walk forward by his own as he spoke: "They sent these scouts to analyse the area and plan their attack, and, oh, they've become very patient, very meticulous, I still haven't figured out how..." when he realised he was walking alone and talking to himself, the man turned, searching for the dark haired girl.
She was still standing on the street corner. "Oh" he frowned. "Hello"
Hope disguised her impatience in a smile. "Hi" she replied, and then motioned both hands in the direction of a side alley. "This way" she said, arching her eyebrows at his hyperactivity.
"Of course" he gave her another queasy smile and walked past her into the alley.
Hope rolled her eyes. Yep. Desperation, most definitely.
The alleyway was empty. The bookshop that Hope was visiting the day her hair got stuck in the mailbox was closed, and she frowned, because it was Wednesday afternoon, but dismissed the thought. The crazy bloke in a bow tie was more of immediate concern.
"So which one is it?" he asked, looking around.
"The only one" she pointed out, as he made an "a-ha" sound and went to analyse the plain, boring mailbox, standing on the street walk.
Hope crossed her arms and watched him circle it once, twice, thrice times, while pointing his whizzing thingy at it. He would make a full circle then look at the thingy. And then he would do it again.
Leave, her conscience told her. Leave now, you already pointed the mailbox to him, he's definitely a crackpot, let him be with his craziness.
She shrugged to herself. If he really was a crackpot, he needed help. And he didn't look like a beggar or anything. Maybe he escaped from somewhere, maybe he had a family desperately looking for him. Maybe he was as lost as she was. He seemed pretty harmless so far, and Hope knew for a fact that she could put up a fight with a bloke as skinny as him. God knows how many boys' noses she broke along her high school years.
She couldn't just leave him. "So... What's your name?"
He was kneeling in front of the mailbox, staring at it. "Oh!" he got up with a jump, which half-startled Hope. "I'm sorry, how rude! I'm the Doctor!" he went to grab her by the shoulders and fake-kiss her in both cheeks.
"The Doctor?" she asked again, unsure. His attitude, his self-title... What sort of crazy was he?
"Yes, the Doctor. You?"
Yup, a crackpot.
She stared at him, agape. "I'm Hope". He was a good reminder that there were people in worst situations than hers.
His face lighted up in a smile. "Oh but that's an amazing name!" The Doctor turned to the mailbox, back to work. "Hope!" he said, impressed. "I've just encountered Hope! Ha!" he laughed at himself.
Hope cringed. There were few things in life that she like less than her name. "Yeah... You can call me Maria".
He turned to her, his brow furrowed in confusion and a bit of indignation. "But why would I do that? You said your name was Hope. It's an amazing name".
"Well, I beg to differ. Maria is my middle name. It's what most people call me".
He was already looking at his noisy little thingy, with a half-opened mouth, very concentrated. "Good thing that I'm not even people, then" he mumbled.
"Excuse me?" she raised an eyebrow.
He turned to her in a very fluid, quick way and smiled. "Well, Hope! I really appreciate your help! This mailbox is now officially deactivated thanks to you! It was the last one on a long string of scouts that I've been dismantling lately!" he turned to the mail box and gave it a little slap. "I don't know why it was off my radar, though" he added.
Hope shook her head. "Look, erm... Do you know where you live?"
The Doctor looked at her and frowned. "Of course I know where I live. What kind of man doesn't know where he lives?"
"Good! That's - that's really good!" she said, giving him the lamest and uncalled for "thumbs up". Man, was she awkward.
"Why do you ask?"
"Um, I, ah" she scratched her head. She had never had to deal with this sort of situation before. What was one supposed to do when meeting a mentally ill person wandering about in the street?
Call the coppers, you moron, she thought. Of course, she rolled her eyes at her own thickness. But... she kept thinking, but he knows where he lives, maybe I can just escort him there. Hope really didn't want to talk to the cops.
The said "Doctor" was still waiting for her answer. She shrugged. "I, I could walk you there, you know... Just, just to be sure".
The Doctor kept frowning at her, confused. "Sure of what, exactly?"
"You know, that you get home safe..."
The Doctor's face grew worried and confused, and he spun around, as if he couldn't think and stand still at the same time. "That's really, really nice of you, you know, but I think I can find-"
WHAM!
He didn't finish his sentence, because just then a huge robotic tentacle whacked him off of his feet and left him bewildered against the wall. The thing was coming out of the mailbox.
Holy-crap-he's-telling-the-truth was the first thought in her mind.
"DOCTOR!" Hope screamed, trying very hard not to freak out at the sight of a giant robot tentacle squirming in front of her. There was an injured human being at stake. "DOCTOR!" she called out again, and attempted to run in his direction, only to be tackled by the tentacle as well. She wind up smashing against the bookshop window, but she didn't crash through it. The robot thing was huge, but the swing it took at her wasn't as powerful as she had expected.
"HOPE!" she heard the Doctor's voice, which was a relief by itself. He was alive. "Don't move, Hope! It's motion sensitive!" he warned her, and Hope stayed very still in her awkward sprawled position on the ground. "You can speak though!" he shouted.
Hope could hear his little prop making those high-pitched noises. "It's a tentacle!" she screamed, mortified. "A robot tentacle!", she was staring at it, it was moving in front of her... And yet Hope couldn't quite believe it.
"I told you! A robot alien tentacle!" he warned her.
"A robot alien tentacle!" she repeated, mortified in her disbelief. She was trying to convince herself that she wasn't hallucinating.
"Yeah, I know!" he said in reply.
"I thought you said you disarmed it or whatever!" she screamed back, barely blinking, afraid that the robot thing would find her. The tentacle was just slowly swaying around now.
"Well, I thought I did!" he replied. "I but I guess this one is an upgrade, that's probably the reason why it was off my radar! I've just made it slower, not disarmed it completely. I just need to get the settings on the sonic screwdriver to the right levels and-"
"STOP TALKING TO ME AND DO IT!" she screamed when the tentacle coming out of the otherwise harmless mailbox approached her, as if it could sniff her or something.
"Hold on! Hold on!" she heard him shout. "Erm, erm... I need a distraction! Otherwise I won't be able to move my hands, the sonic is a few feet away from me!"
Hope closed her eyes. That couldn't possibly be happening. Not for real. She was dreaming. That was it. Dreaming.
And she couldn't die in a dream, she decided.
"Alright" she replied, taking a deep breath and preparing to run. "Geronimo!" she screamed as she dashed to the other side of the alley, feeling all her bones and bruised muscles protest. She was whacked once again by the robotic tentacle, and fell face-flat against the ground. "DID YOU GET IT?" Hope asked, after inhaling deeply. Her whole body was hurting.
From her perspective, she couldn't see the robotic tentacle anymore - it was behind her. And she also couldn't see the Doctor.
"DOCTOR?!" she screamed.
Hope heard a wheezing sound and everything went very still around her.
"It's alright, you can move now" she heard the Doctor saying. Still a little scared, Hope ventured turning her head.
The Doctor was standing a few feet away, with his sonic-whatever in one hand, staring at the robotic thing, which was lying lifeless on the ground.
Hope let out a sigh of relief and waited to wake up.
Nothing happened. She was still lying in the middle of a London alley.
"I said, 'you can move now'" the Doctor insisted.
She got up very quickly, as if to compensate her initial unresponsiveness. Hope stared at him as the Doctor circled around the robotic tentacle and with a flash of the sonic screwdriver thing, it retracted to the mailbox once again.
It was as if it had never been there.
If Hope wasn't feeling so bruised and battered, she would've argued against her better judgment that it was really all an hallucination, but the bruises and the pain left little room for self-doubt.
The Doctor tilted his head to one side and looked at her, still sitting on the ground. "Are you alright?"
Hope felt a little deja vù. That was how he first encountered her: bewildered on the ground. Back then she was pretty sure of the world around her. Now, not so much.
"A gigantic... robot... tentacle" she repeated to herself, very slowly, still not quite believing it.
"Yeah, I know, very impressive, right?" he looked around. "Anyway, I was impressed! All gone now. It's all fine, as it should be", he added, reassuring, wiggling his eyebrows.
"No".
The Doctor frowned at her. "No?"
"No, it's not".
He scratched the back of his head, a little worried. "I know, big reality shock, but really, you..."
"No", Hope shushed him with her stern voice tone. "The bookshop", she said, slowly getting up and looking at the darkened bookshop.
The Doctor turned to stare at the shop's façade. "What about it?" he asked.
"Why is it closed on a Wednesday afternoon?" she inquired.
"Oh" the Doctor's sudden realisation pleased Hope. "Why, indeed..." he murmured, approaching the glass door with the "closed" sign hanging from the inside.
"Can it be more of that thing inside?" Hope whispered, without even realised that she was whispering.
"No, but a control room, yes" the Doctor replied, also whispering. He then stopped and turned to her. "I'm very impressed, by the way".
"Really?" she tried to hold back the smile that wanted to creep up on her face.
"Yes, you said 'geronimo'!" he nodded at her, approvingly.
"Oh" that wasn't exactly what Hope was expecting.
