The Doctor has often said that TARDIS is very much a girl. She has feelings. She cares about saving herself.
And she plots.
So when TARDIS began to continuously loop him back to the library, he knew something was afoot. "TARDIS! I have work to do. By work I mean sleep, but it's just as importa…TARDIS, where did my book go?" it was true. Just as he'd happened upon the huge tome that held all the history of Time Lords, it had dissolved, completely teleported to somewhere else.
TARDIS had stolen his book.
He ran back through the tunnels to the control room and noticed the lights flashing and an address began scrolling across every screen in the room.
185 west state street, Trenton, NJ
He plugged it into the machine, flipped a few buttons and pulled the lever. And waited to land.
When he did land he couldn't help but chuckle at TARDIS. "A library? Really?" He pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver and scanned the building, reading for information.
"Not just any library. The state library. Biggest Library in New Jersey. Really, TARDIS? How am I supposed to find it in here?" he sighed and entered the library, deciding to not think about how close this was to Alyssa's house. What could his newest companion have to do with his book?
Turns out it wasn't as hard to find his book as he thought it would be. That would be because someone had it sitting next to them. At a table. Watching the front door, looking quite bored.
The book was open.
When he walked in, The Doctor noticed that the girl tiredly checked the page (fairly early, first ten pages or so, so The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief) and immediately perked up. She sat up straighter, even though her posture had been impeccable the whole time. She seemed to lean back, and watched as he he came within ear shot, she spoke up.
"So you'd be the Doctor then, yeah?"
If he'd had tea he would have chocked on it.
"How did you...?"
She cut him off. "Interesting book you've got here" Her voice was assured, confident. But also had layers of excitement and was laced with pieces of-if the Doctor assumed right-wonder.
"Yes, but how did you get it?" The Doctor sat down, thoroughly confused. Why would TARDIS give his book to this girl?
"Well! I was just browsing the nonfiction section. Don't ask me why, I hate nonfiction its all written so dully, like a textbook. And it doesn't ever talk about fun stuff."
He just had to cut her off there. "Fun stuff?"
"Yeah, fun stuff. Like the fae or vampires of Victorian family troubles. It's all boring stuff about wars and inventions.
Anyway, so I was just looking, not really paying attention because why wasn't I in the fantasy section again? And there was just this space in the shelf. Just an open spot. And any normal person would go 'well duh someone checked it out' but that didn't work because the very next decimal was after the space so it couldn't have been another book there because it would have been out of place. Which, with a huge library like this isn't unlikely, except the two stacks of books on either side weren't falling."
The Doctor had been following her until his point. She spoke fast, giving the entire story in about 20 seconds, probably less, but falling? "Falling?"
"Yeah, like dominoes. The pressure of all the books lean on each other. Take one off the shelf and they fall to lean on the next one. There was no leaning. Just" she waved her hands about a bit. The Doctor noticed she talked with her hands a lot. Her dirty blonde hair swished about, and it was quite long, straight but just very slightly wavy at the ends, and reaching about her waistline.
"an empty space"
The Doctor understood now, but still-"what does this have to do with my book?"
"Well," she said with a smile, and her bright green eyes lit up, and the Doctor saw it also had specks of blue and brown and even gold. And she stared stories with the word 'well' a lot "being the curious kitten I am, I reached into the empty space, you know, to see what was up. But just as I was about to pass the line of books, where you would have touched the spine of the book if it was there, this book materialized in front of my hand! Kid you not, I just reached for it and it appeared." She then smiled sheepishly "I couldn't help myself. But when I saw your picture, I knew that this book was important, and I didn't read any further." She gave a definite nod and closed the book.
"Right. Well, it showed up because TARDIS decided to drop it unto you. She-" Doctor's eyes widened, his mouth dropping.
The girl nodded her head enthusiastically. "wanted us to meet" she finished before holding her hand across the table to the Doctor. "Sara Michelle Johnson, Sara for short, at your service."
He nodded and shook Sara's hand. She was exceptionally tan for someone living in New Jersey. Her face became very serious for a moment. "Doctor, do you have a companion?"
He snapped to look at her. "Actually, yes."
Sara seemed to sigh in relief. "Oh good, that's good"
"Why?"
She smiled then "You're a Time Lord. Traveling alone isn't safe. Physically and mentally." Then her smile faded and her eyes grew wide.
"Triangles." She muttered
His eyebrows drew together, "I'm sorry, what?"
"Triangles. Triangles triangles triangles." Sara began rummaging around, looking for something. She ducked under the table and popped back up with a piece of paper and a pencil. She placed them on the table and sat back in her seat, leaning over it and drawing something. She spun it around and passed it across the table so it sat in front of the very confused Doctor. The paper was blank except for 3 dots, placed in seemingly random pots on the top half of the paper.
"What do you know about triangles, Doctor?"
"They have three sides. Their angels equal 180°. Three angels. Three vertices-"
"EXACTLY!" She cried, and the Doctor jumped, but she was too caught up in her train of thought to notice. "Three, three, three! Triangles are made up of three, and three is the most powerful number." She got up and walked to sit next to the Doctor. "Triangles are made up of line segments but they start as rays." She drew arrows from one dot toward the other, going clockwise, but not connecting them. "And sometimes the rays are going both ways." This time she added arrows pointing the opposite direction, headed counter clockwise. Each line only had a few centimeters before they connected and formed a triangle. "and eventually these rays are going to come together." She connected two dots, writing over the arrows over and over. "This is you," She labeled the dot at the top 'Doctor' "this is me," the one to the right she labeled 'Sara' "and this one is your companion-whats her name? Well, initials are fine."
"A.M."
"Alright," so she labeled the last dot 'A.M.' and then connected that dot with his dot the same way she connected his and the 'Sara' dot. "So these two line segments are already complete." She poked the line connection 'Doctor' to 'Sara' "TARDIS decided it was about time that this line happened. Why? Why now? Why work so hard to finish a triangle if one side isn't connected-wait!" She looked over at the Doctor and he immediately understood.
"Alyssa. Her name is Alyssa"
"Alyssa what. I know a lot of Alyssa's."
"McKendry. Alyssa McKendry" the Doctor said quickly
Sara froze, he entire body becoming tense. "McKendry?"