John sits at the front desk unhappily. He taps his pen, waiting for something, or anything, to happen. It never does, though. He just keeps his eye on the clock, even though it never moves. That's weird, right? He doesn't really care anymore, not really, that is. Same old life, after all, just with clocks that don't work.
A woman walks in, all fiery hair splayed over her shoulders. She's wearing a black blazer over her blue shirt and black skirt. There's a funky kind of pen or something in her inside pocket but John can't see it well enough. With a flip of the auburn locks over her shoulder she looks at him. Her eyes are a stunning blue, with the slightest hint of another color around the pupils. "Um, hello?—can I have my mail, please?"
"Oh!" John flushes guiltily at being caught staring. He rifles through the mess on his desk. "I-I'm so sorry, um, could I have your name, please?"
"Oh, you're the new temp," the woman smiles an alleviating little smirk. "I'm Nellie—Nellie Bertram."
"Ah, yes, Miss Bertram," John smiles at the woman, who now seems awfully familiar to him. Maybe it's her hair - but he doesn't know anyone here, yet - or her eyes. Perhaps she looks like a celebrity; she's certainly beautiful in that glamorous kind of way. As she takes the mail, though, he sees that fancy pen in her inside pocket again. It's a funky looking doodad, with a light on the top of it. Is it a pen or a high-tech lipstick?
Nellie looks to where John's looking but there's nothing inside her pocket. "Something wrong, Mister Smith?"
"Oh, no, um, call me John, please," he corrects in a distanced tone. "Sorry, I'm just, uh, distracted lately, I guess."
"This place can do that," Nellie nods to the side before her eyes turn a gold-ish color. "The Library is silent."
John feels his mind pound as if an explosion were pressing against the insides of his skull. He holds his head but his mind's eye sees The Library. He remembers being in The Library, and being with the Doctor. The Doctor, he notes, who has bright red hair and blue-gold eyes. He looks up at Nellie, whose eyes are still glowing gold, through his fog of pain. "Doctor, is that you?"
"Yes, John!—where are you?" Nellie's lips move but he only hears the Doctor's voice in his head.
"I don't know," he mutters before falling to the ground. The world shifts under him, body curled in pain. The ground seems to rip away from itself, and soon John feels like he's floating. It's like he's in space, he labors over the thought through his blinding headache. No, this is unlike anything he has ever felt before. It's like there's another mind inside his head. That was the Doctor's voice, though, he remembers.
"Clear the way, I'm the Doctor."
John looks up, shaking, expecting to find orange hair and blue eyes. Instead he sees a man with grey hair and glasses, telling John to take them out of here. He's a nutter, John thinks to himself, wherever he came from.
"The Library, John, remember The Library, and the Doctor."
John blinks away his migraine, rubbing at his eyes. He's still John, still working as a temp. He transferred to…here? Where is here?
"John, are you feeling better?" Nellie asks him. "That migraine looked absolutely wretched. I used to get those when I was a kid."
"Yeah, I'm feeling better, thanks," he smiles at his new friend. "What…what exactly happened?"
"Oh, well, you collapsed, then a Doctor came and sent you home for the day."
The Doctor, John thinks to himself. He's supposed to remember something. "What did…what was her name?"
"Her," Nellie frowns at John; "it was a man, called himself Doctor Dodici, I think. He seemed to know you."
"Did he say anything to me?" John looks intently at Nellie, who seems to have just as much trouble remembering as he does. In a small way, he's comforted, but in another he also finds it even more disconcerting.
Nellie's eyes become a golden hue as she turns to John. "The world is wrong."
"What?" John remembers those words. He knows what they mean yet is endlessly confused by them. "What does that mean?"
"Time is in flux," Nellie's lips continue to move with no sound but the Doctor's voice channeling directly into John's mind. "The Library is Silent; the world is wrong."
John remembers the Doctor's words, in the voice that wisps through his mind like a cooling breeze. When he looks at Nellie again her eyes have returned to normal and she's looking at him with a soft, fond expression. "What?—what is it?"
"There you go with that look again," Nellie smiles a little when the man looks sheepish. "Who is it I remind you of?—a girl?"
John rubs the back of his neck sheepishly at Nellie's inquisitiveness. "I, uh, yeah, you could say that."
"Ooh, well, she must have been sommin' else," Nellie chuckles. When John looks sad again she melts. "You see her when you look at me?"
"Kind of," John runs his fingers along the bench—how did they get to the park? The wood under his fingers is rough, as if it's composed of a bunch of bumps. "I guess you could say it like that."
"I had a man," Nellie nods vaguely, "broke my heart. Then there was another man…whose heart I broke. I miss both of them, differently, but miss them all the same."
"You have your son," John offers. He can't think of why, but his heart aches for a daughter he never actually had.
"Yes, and he has an unloved ball of crazy of a mother," Nellie laughs deprecatingly.
"You're brilliant," John corrects his friend.
You're brilliant.
John frowns suddenly. This barrage on his mind is different. There's no blinding pain or unbearable heat, just an echoing in his head. The Doctor's voice - whoever she is - is still in his head. He can still hear her voice, hear her calling him brilliant and…Earthboy?
"You're brilliant," Nellie, golden eyed, speaks in the Doctor's familiarly affectionate voice. "John, you're brilliant."
"Doctor, I don't know what to do," John whispers, feeling the same cold fear that crept inside of him when he was teleported from The Library. "Doctor, how do I get back to The Library?"
"John, you're in The Library," the Doctor says through Nellie's eyes.
"I know, but I need to get back to you!" John raises his voice.
"There you are, John!"
John frowns as a man sits himself on the park bench. What is he doing there? Why are either of them there? What happened to the woman?—she had a son! "Who are you?"
"I'm Twelve," the man - isn't that the Doctor he saw the other day? - smiles at John understandingly. "I know there's a lot to adjust to, in here, John, but you have to resist it. If you accept this world you'll be fully integrated. That's what happened to Lee."
Lee, John thinks, he knows that name. He remembers the name Lee McAvoy and why he doesn't have a face to match to it. "How did it happen?"
"I saw into the data core," says Twelve, still acting as cool as a cucumber. "The Doctor and Lee got coded in here, but as soon as Lee accepted the world in here his integration was finalized. That's why he can't exist outside of The Library anymore."
"Lee is in The Library," John whispers to himself. Visions flash through his mind. The Doctor, sad, talking about Lee. There's a ridiculous amount of running.
"John, you know this place is wrong; this world is wrong. You have to remember that, keep remembering the Doctor. If you ever want to get back to her, and see her again, you remember that this world is wrong." Twelve leans in close with John, to discuss his conspiracy intensely. "Time is wrong in here, John. This world is wrong."
"The world is wrong," John affirms. He remembers waiting for The Doctor. "I need the Doctor."
"I know, John, just remember."
"John," Nellie pats John's cheek, frightened at how still he has gone in thought. "John, what are you thinking?"
John looks at Nellie with tears in his eyes. His heart is pounding with pain and he doesn't know why. He takes her hand, soft against his stubbly cheek, in need of warmth. She grants him that, looking confused and anxious. "Sorry, I just…zoned out there, huh?"
"Yeah," Nellie says in a voice that is familiar but of her own volition. "John…where is the Doctor?"
"The Doctor," John inhales sharply. "She…she's in The Library. I have to find her."
"You lost her before," Nellie states rather than asks. "You waited for her?"
"Yeah, I did," John frowns as the memories of the year that never was dawn on him. He remembers a rip in time, and waiting. "I waited a whole year just to try and see her again."
"You loved her," says Nellie, softly, letting the words travel on the wind and into his ear.
"I love her," John repeats. He has so little mental capacity at the moment he doesn't know what else he can do. "I waited…I would wait for her. I would wait a thousand years for her."
"I love that song," Nellie declares next to John on the plane. She settles her purse below her seat and crosses her legs. "If a bloke sang that song to me I'd be his, just like that."
John looks around the plane, trying not to look manic. "Where are we…going?"
"Scranton," Nellie bounces her ticket anxiously in her hand against her thigh. "For my reunion with my old office mates."
"Right, you-you're right, of course, sorry," John shakes his head, hoping it will clarify something. If anything it has an etchesketch effect and makes his thoughts even muddier.
"John, are you all right?" Nellie asks in the cab. "You can just stay at the hotel, with Drake, and I can go alone."
"No, it's fine," John frowns, bouncing the toddler on his knee. There are questions in his head, but somehow he resists the urge to ask them. They were on a plane, then they landed, got in a cab, and now he and baby…something, are going to a wedding party. "What's his name?"
"Toby," Nellie introduces John to a slim, sandy haired man. Her hand lingers on his arm, and John smiles. "This is my friend John; he's a temp."
"You're not just a temp, though."
John glances to his right to find Twelve sitting next to him, sipping Champagne. To his left, a woman is holding a toddler, a little boy. He looks up to see Nellie dancing with a man. Nellie Bertram: she is his friend. He looks back at the man. "What's going on?"
"Time is going to fluctuate the more progress the Doctor makes in finding you and extrapolating everyone. That's why The Library was empty, John, because everyone was saved to the mainframe." Twelve swirls his champagne a little. "The Vashta Nerada appeared in The Library and, when everyone tried to teleport, the processor took them all and saved them as data signatures. That's what we are, right now."
"But we're real," John presses, gauging Twelve's face. He seems hesitant. "I'm real, you're real; Nellie is real!"
"I'm sorry, John, I can't guarantee that," Twelve winces.
"Nellie is real and so is her son!" John hisses at Twelve quietly, so as not to alert anyone to their conversation. He doesn't want to upset anyone, least of all Nellie, who is dancing with…who is that man?!
"John, the world is still wrong, and I don't know who's real and who's not," Twelve argues in an equally subdued tone. "I can say that you've held up well. You need to keep that up; keep remembering. Keep in mind that time flows differently in here. When you suddenly find yourself somewhere, somewhen else, continue to question it."
"John, are you all right?"
John looks up from where he sleeps on Nellie's couch. When he looks at his old - new(?) - friend he smiles sadly. Time has passed, but not correctly, he reminds himself. She looks older, but beautifully so. He bets this is what the Doctor would look like if she aged. Wait, the Doctor doesn't age. She's…she's from another world. She's from Gallifrey!
"Earthboy," Nellie calls mentally at John, eyes glowing. "Earthboy, can you hear me?"
"Doctor!" John shouts. He holds Nellie's face delicately, trying to take care through his panic. "Doctor, help, tell me what to do!"
"I'm coming for you!" Nellie mouths without expression.
"Doctor, don't leave me! Please, don't leave me again!" John pleads tearfully.
"John, I'm coming for you! I promise I'll find you!"
John wakes up in a cold sweat, looking around his dark, sad little bachelor pad. It has been months since he last saw Nellie—no, no, it has been seconds, that's all. John takes a deep breath and puts a hand to his heart. "Seconds…it's only seconds."
"Are you all right, John?"
When he looks up he sees a sad, tired version of his friend. She looks broken, with eyes so hollow it breaks his heart. This world is still wrong, but she's real, right? She has to be, John thinks, his best friend has to be real. Nellie is his best friend, who has a son… John runs a hand through his hair. This world is wrong, and it's breaking. Months passed within a few seconds and Nellie's son dissipated from the world. How could this place be so cruel, though? How could it rip a child from his mother? "I'm fine, Nell, what about you?"
The red haired woman shrugs heavily. "John, why is this happening?"
"I don't know," John stands and runs his hands down the woman's arms.
"Time isn't right," Nellie murmurs, and John smiles, albeit sadly. Of course she would figure it out. "Is that why he's gone?"
"I don't know, Nell, but I hope you get him back," John presses a kiss to Nellie's forehead and holds her tightly.
"John," Nellie's eyes turn golden for the first time in both a long and short time. "John, you're in the data core."
"Doctor, tell me what's happening," John whispers with his forehead against Nellie's.
"John, I've found the sequencing and I'm going to reverse the immersion process." Says the Doctor through Nellie. "Just hold on."
"John," Nellie's voice is fragile, but her own again. She looks at her friend's sad, wide brown eyes. "John, this place is wrong."
"I know," he whispers to her.
"This world…it isn't real, is it?" Tears stream down Nellie's cheeks.
"No, it isn't," John wipes them away delicately.
"Was he real?" Nellie asks, and John smiles, because she was always a wonderful mother, looking out for her son foremost.
"I know he was, Nell," John feels himself start to cry as well.
"Am I real?"
John chokes on a sob as he looks into his best friend's eyes. "You're as real as anything." Light begins to fill his vision. He remembers this light and knows that it's time to go back to The Library. "I know you're real, Nellie. I'll find you, okay? I promise I'll find you, and your son."
"John, it's time."
When John turns he sees Twelve standing there. Everything is white, but it's not nothing yet. There's a wind, blowing around like a vortex. "Tell me she was real."
"She's from another reality, John. This world is a quilt of other realities." Twelve approaches John with heavy hearts. "You drew realities into the processor and wove them around you."
"But why me," John asks with a dark, exhausted air about him.
"Timelines converge on you because you are one of a kind, John Smith." Twelve pats John on the shoulder heavily. "It's time to go back to the Doctor."
"Who are you?" John asks the question he now remembers has been on his mind for years/all day.
"I am from another reality, where I am the Doctor, and the woman you know is my companion." Twelve answers in moderated honesty. "However, my reality is crumbling, just like this one is now. We need you and the Doctor, together. That's the only thing that can save your world."
"I'm just a temp," John says with so little energy in him that it sucks the life from him.
"You're brilliant, John Smith," Twelve smiles with a finality. "You are one of a kind, and it's time for you to find the Doctor."
John is lying on the floor, by the teleport. He doesn't have the energy to pick himself up just yet. After all he experienced in there he doesn't know if he'll ever have energy again. Tears are dried on his cheeks but he doesn't mind. They're for Nellie, after all.
"John," the Doctor's voice calls frantically. She finds him, just where he should be. He's breathing, but lying like a wounded animal. "Oh, John, I'm so sorry."
"Doctor," he whispers under his breath. He feels his body being collected into her arms. "Where is everyone?"
"They're safe," the Doctor whispers reverently at feeling of her Earthboy's heartbeat against her. She lays a kiss to his hair and continues to hold him tight, rocking slightly. "They're safe now, John."
John is limp all throughout the next little while. He feels like he's hearing everything through a tin can, when the Doctor directs the staff of The Library on what happened and how to send everyone home. Even her hand tightly holding his feels strange. Maybe he's just not used to feeling actual warmth again. "What happened to the Vashta Nerada?"
"They hatched from microspores in the books," says the Doctor. "This the their forest—their dead forest, all bound and pulped and printed. I saved their energy signature to the mainframe and deleted it."
"Where is Twelve?"
The Doctor turns remorseful, on the verge of mourning. "He took your place in the data core to guarantee a clean download."
"He's in there, now?" John looks up for the first time in hours.
"Yeah," the Doctor nods simply. "It's all right, though, I mean… He was from another universe, John, but parallel worlds are sealed. The fact that he could reach us meant that his world was being deconstructed. Here…he'll always be…safe."
"In there," John begins, "he spoke to me. He told me that the world in there is like a bunch of different realities. He said I folded a bunch of realities around me."
"Sounds like my Earthboy," the Doctor squeezes his hand gently, and almost timidly, "brilliant."
"I met someone in there," John feels emotion swell in the base of his throat again. "Her name was Nellie Bertram, and she was my best friend in that world. She had a son, who disappeared when the world started breaking down. I…I told her I'd find her. Is…she's…was she real?"
"If she was from another universe there might not be any way of knowing." The Doctor looks away as John does, both feeling drained from their experiences. "She had a son?"
"Yeah, named Drake," John sniffs his tears back, "and there was a man named Toby in her life."
"John, did you see them together, talking?" The Doctor pulls out the Sonic.
"Yeah, I even met him," John nods.
"If she were just a figment of the data core she'd be a non-animate data fragment, she wouldn't have interacted with anyone else, except possibly you. If she was from another reality, though, then it's possible her timeline just got bumped a little bit out of alignment and intersected with yours while in there. Was there anything different about her?—anything that reminded you of the world out here?" The Doctor talks excitedly, rushing her words and grasping John's arms.
"I heard you speaking to me through her, I mean, she looked just like you," John says but the Doctor shakes her head. He thinks harder. "When I first met her I saw your Sonic in her jacket pocket, but she couldn't."
"Oh, Johnny-Boy, you are brilliant!" The Doctor starts fiddling with the Sonic, adjusting settings and putting her ear to it. "If you saw her with my Sonic then there's a tie between us through realities. You said she looked just like me, and I was able to talk to you in there! I thought it was just a telepathic thing but if I spoke through her then she was like a vessel for my energy signature in there, which means we're tied through alternate universes! She's like a completely alternate version of me!"
"What does that mean?" John feels anticipation bubbling inside of him.
"I can lock onto her signature," the Doctor points the Sonic skyward and hits a button. As she does it flickers with a golden light, just like John saw in Nellie's eyes all those times. In a projection above them they see a woman who definitely has the Doctor's face but looks so different to them now. "John, this is Nellie Bertram."
John looks on the face of his best friend. She doesn't look as much like the Doctor now as he thought she did in there. The projection rotates in 3D but he just sees Nellie, smiling and playing with her son. Tears collect in his eyes. "He was real—they both were. They were real."
"They are real," the Doctor smiles at John, taking his hand tightly. He squeezes back. "They're real, John, and they're safe."
"Safe," John repeats as he brushes his thumb over the Doctor's hand, sharing his experience with his best friend with her. "They're safe."