Molly's eyes opened. There she lay, tucked neatly underneath her polka-dotted flannel sheets. Light streamed in through the window, and she saw the world beyond covered in a blanket of snow. She groaned and pulled the covers away, ever so slowly. Shivering, she slid her pale feet into her tattered, pink slippers, stretched, and sat up groggily.
It's just another day, Molly, she thought to herself. You can do it. Just get up.
From her angle, the room seemed so empty, so cold. The bed rested on the eastern side of the bedroom, allowing for some welcoming morning sunshine. Next to her bed was a tiny window with a little shelf for flowers. Every spring, Molly had attempted to plant begonias, but it seemed as if they always wilted, curling its parched, brown petals and fading away. She didn't have much success with the walls either: she had never gotten around to painting them, so they were still bland and white, and consistently devoid of any personality or warmth. When she moved in, she contemplated adding some artwork, but shopping always made her uncomfortable, and online shopping felt cumbersome and indecisive. The only object interrupting the dull starkness of the walls was her faded poster of the 1948 London Olympic Game, which always sagged to the left. The bottom right corner had ripped when she was attempting to frame it, so she just stuck it there with tape, which she could see peeking out from behind the edges of the paper.
Then there were the countless piles of books that rested against the same wall. She had never bothered to get a bookshelf, but her system worked just fine. She loved books no matter their location: on the floor, in a shelf, on the table-anywhere. She couldn't get enough of them: the smell of old books, the crisp, impatient feel of a new one, the swish of air that escaped from each page turn.
Molly never worried about dusting them, since she was constantly reading and rereading and reorganising them. She had a corner for fiction novels, separated into mysteries, romance, adventure, and everything in between. There were some cookbooks sprinkled in as well, but considering her past luck in the kitchen, she rarely even glanced at them. Then there was a small collection of biographies, which was adjacent to her dictionaries, thesauruses, and encyclopedias, and her variety of medical guides, textbooks, and reference books. Her most treasured book in that area was the one Sherlock had reluctantly purchased for her, at John's request, for her birthday. It was London Street Atlas, A-Z, and she already had a copy, but inside Sherlock had written "To Molly". It was the only thing he had ever given her, and she kept the copy in immaculate condition.
On their own, directly under the London poster, laid her most favourite books. The ones that could barely hold themselves together from the strains of being held and hugged so often. The ones with yellowed pages and cracked spines; with torn pages and missing covers. The ones she couldn't live without.
Then, between the end of the bed and the wall, Molly had arranged a tiny nook with a small blue rug and dozens of pillows and blankets. This was her reading corner: her escape from the endless routines and normalicies of life. It was her ticket to travel the world that never expired. On an especially good day, when she was feeling exceptionally lucky, it allowed her to leave her little corner of her little flat in London, break through her roof and past the sky, and see the stars. She would feel herself continue to rise, passing through planets and galaxies and entire universes, getting so close to the ever-burning stars that her face would boil and her hair burst into flames. It was only then that she felt whole, with the bright fires of a thousand distant suns coursing through her veins and extinguishing her nagging voices, her guilt, and her conscious. There, she felt unreachable. There, Molly Hooper became something she had always longed to be: special.
While in the shower, Molly thought she could hear voices from the front room.
Why does that sound suspiciously like the news? She thought to herself as she lathered herself in soap. Did I leave the TV on last night? Oh, God, not again.
Returning to her room, she dressed quickly. She tied her hair up in a neat ponytail, clipped back the strands that escaped the tie, and was just reaching for her phone when she heard a crash from down the hallway. Taken by surprise, she stumbled out of the room, tripping on an ill-placed bobby pin, and skidded down the hallway and into the kitchen. The only sound louder than her scream was the whir of the blender, which was currently mixing what looked like three bananas, two teabags, a spoonful of porridge, and a pickle. On the floor, the remnants of a green mug lay scattered across the tiles. Standing there in a tight blue suit, a tall man with wild brown hair had one hand resting on the blender and one holding what appeared to be some sort of tool, maybe a flashlight or a screwdriver, pointed at the mug.
"Oh, hullo, Molly," he said casually, nodding in her direction. "How'd you sleep?"
Still in shock, Molly couldn't seem to form a proper sentence. Her vocal cords still vibrated and her tongue searched hopelessly for what to say. Her scream slowly evaporated from the room, and all that escaped her mouth was nonsensical rubbish. The cheeky bastard just grinned, as if she was some long-lost friend.
"Did you just drop my favourite mug?" she managed to choke out. Nice going, Molly. Possible robber-or worse-in your kitchen, and you ask him about a mug.
He cringed and shook his head apologetically. "I may have done that, yes, sorry about that, so very sorry, I do have a record for being rather clumsy, Molly Hooper," he stated, his eyes transfixed on the blender, which was starting to smoke.
"I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave, please, or I'll need to call the police," Molly said, somewhat meekly, thrown off by the fact he knew her name. She took a deep breath, crossed her arms, and sighed. "Please." she begged, this time with more conviction.
"Alright, go call them," he said absently, pointing the tool in his hand at the now overflowing blender. The tip turned blue and a strange, high pitched type of buzzing sound filled the air. Suddenly, the blender stopped shaking and spitting the brownish liquid, and with a pop, ceased working.
"And now you've gone and broken my blender?" Molly asked, her pitch rising. "That's it." She ran from the kitchen as the intruder rummaged through her cabinets for a mug that was still intact. He wiggled his fingers in a goodbye, but she didn't look back, grabbing her keys off of their hook and throwing up the front door. She picked up her pace as she widened the distance between her and the strange man shattering mugs and breaking blenders in her kitchen. After three flights of stairs, she reached the exit to her building and burst out into the street. It was still too early and too cold for many people to be out on the street, but a runner in a winter coat jogged past Molly as she attempted to catch her breath. She reached into her pocket for her phone, fingers shaking, and…nothing. Her heart caught in her throat. An image came to mind of her phone still resting on her nightstand in her room.
Of all the things to forget when someone breaks into your apartment, Molly, she scolded herself. You leave your phone.
Curling her hands into fists, she started to walk briskly down her street, all the time muttering to herself. She could see each breath in the air as it tumbled around her, and as she trudged through the snow, her eyes watered in the cold and the wind tickled at her ears. To her right was the alleyway, the one she usually was so cautious to avoid. But instead of an empty alley, as usual, there stood some sort of box, about the size and shape of a telephone booth. A large, wooden, blue box. She felt something stir within her as she shuffled towards it. For some reason, it almost seemed familiar. She strained her eyes and read the words printed across the top: POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX.
Police. I need the police. Molly hurried towards the booth. She yanked on the door handle, but it was locked.
"Come on!" she yelled. "Please open, please open for me, please." She begged.
Nothing.
"Well, there you go, Molly," she said to herself out loud, defeated. "You can't even open a simple blue box, for goodness sakes. How do you expect to fit in? How do you expect to even associate yourself with anyone, let alone Greg or Jim or John or, or…or Sherlock?" She pounded one on the side of the box, and it echoed and seemed to faintly breathe and groan, but she was too wrapped up in berating herself to notice.
"Everyone you've ever loved has just moved on, and everyone else seems to hate you just the same. Sooner or later, they're all going to leave you…just like that." On "that", Molly snapped her fingers and tears started to form. Then, before she could start to sob, she heard a clicking noise from behind her.
The door to the box had opened. And the inside was huge. It looked like a…control room. She wiped away her stinging tears and sniffed.
How is this real? She had noticed it was about the same size as a telephone booth, but the room was far too big to fit inside this tiny box. Is it an entrance to something? To the building behind it? Molly kept one hand on the side of the booth and slowly walked around the entire thing. All four sides. It wasn't attached to anything. It was actually bigger on the inside.
She stumbled backwards, her mind racing. Somehow, she was crazy. She just knew it. It was more than the voices. Now it was a problem. Now she was seeing things.
The door to the box remained open. She closed her eyes, pinched herself, and opened them again. Still there.
It's official. I have officially lost it.
"What are you?" she asked the box.
"It's the TARDIS," a voice behind her answered. "And if I'm not mistaken, I do believe she just opened herself for you."