"What do you mean right after we said goodbye? I haven't seen you in months!" I back away from The Doctor slightly as he sits up. "You're making no sense."
"Interesting. Months have passed for you, no time has passed for me." He rushes to stand up and copies my movements from moments ago as he looks around the street as time continues to stand still. "You've got to admit it's strange."
My eyes focus on two arguing men both gesturing to what must be their wrecked cars, I had noticed them outside the window earlier when they crashed into each other. Now they're stuck with the angered expressions on their face for an over extended time. If I were to describe them I would state they were unknowingly comical as they stood there unmoving.
"It's more than strange. Time has stopped, that's just insane!"
"No I was talking about the fact I appeared next to you when there was a whole universe of people I could have appeared with." The Doctor stands up before immediately leaning down to grab a handful of dirt, sniffing it. "Something is very wrong with London."
"Well I'm sorry you ended up stuck with me." I scrunch my nose in uncertainly. "What do you mean London? We're in America. You said you were here with your friends."
"But you have a British accent."
"Doesn't mean we're in Britain you genius." I joke, standing up slowly while taking a deep breath to calm myself. Ok. This man may be insane but he is the only person I have to work with. Somehow we need to fix this whole problem with only a Unconfident High School graduate and a man who seems to have just escaped an insane asylum to do it. The fate of the world is in fantastic hands. "Ok. Time is frozen, and the culprits are nowhere to be seen. Great start to being the only people not frozen."
"Technically you're wrong there. So far I have two suspects." He runs toward the beautiful flower bed outside the Library and picks a Red Poppy. He holds the flower above his head before letting go of it, studying the beautiful plant as it falls. "Also time isn't frozen. Earth is being suspended in paused animation, otherwise that flower would have frozen in the air instead of gravity taking effect."
"Ok. That's logical I guess. Apart from the fact that things like this don't happen. There's no such thing as paused animation. People are people, they can't just stop." He grabs my hand as I argue and pulls me further down the street so I can see more people standing unmoving in front of me.
"Are you sure about that? I have over Seven Billion ways to prove you wrong." I stare with my mouth open trying to think how to reply as he pulls what he mutters is called a Sonic Screwdriver out of his pocket. He uses it to scan the area before studying the device thoughtfully. "The cause is definitely from this town, but where, and by who."
He drops my hand and glances with suspicion aimed my way. "You don't have any alien devices on you, do you?"
"Oh, yeah I do. See this broom here? It's actually a very powerful people freezer. For instance!" I lightly hit his shoulder with the broom and scoff at him. "No of course not! I'm a Librarian for goodness sake. My only weapons are books."
His eyes crinkle in amusement as he waves the Sonic Screwdriver my way, why on earth he would want to scan me I have no idea. But the minute his eyes fall on the device to look at its report, the joyful look on his face soon turns into a grimace. Eventually I see him put on a fake smile. "You're right. No weapons on you."
"Then why do you look like either you or I are going to fall down dead any second." I shiver slightly as I feel an uncomfortable cold breeze. "Seriously. It's really worrying me, can you please stop."
"Your wish is my command." He mock bows before taking my hand again, half dragging me into the library. I can't help but stare at our linked hands and wonder how he already feels comfortable with me when we've really only met twice. Come on logic. He's probably a recently escaped psychopath I'm letting slowly break down the walls against trust I've had up for years.
"Now. The signal originates from in this library. So" He pulls the carefully placed books violently off the shelf and drops them on the floor, pushing them down like dominos. "If I wanted to hide that sort of device in a library, where would I put it."
He stops near the delicate books, gesturing for me to search them while he heads straight for the children's section. He avoids some young mothers and their children that had been suspended while looking through the stories placed around, he picks up a new rendition of The Ugly Duckling and quickly flicks through it. Within a heartbeat he seems to wipe a tear away and mutters the words. "What a lovely ending. But not somewhere someone would hide an evil device."
Baffled by his strangeness I tilt my head and realise how stupid this all is. Why am I trusting him exactly? And why on earth would a person hide an item so important in a library? Anyone could pick up anything in here and steal it with nobody paying enough attention to notice.
"You know... If I was going to hide something important to me, that I wanted no one to touch, I'd put it in the public bathroom. Right behind the toilet. Nobody would want to look there." I say humorously, kneeling down to pick up some of the discarded books, but I can't help but stop when The Doctor looks at me like I'm the smartest person since Einstein.
"Of course! A public bathroom! Somewhere so disgusting nobody would ever think to look around." The Doctor runs out of the room, stopping at the door. "Ah, you better check the Woman's while I check the Men's. You know. In case of people.. in there... "
His awkwardness is almost on par with mine as I nod and laugh, heading into the thankfully empty woman's bathroom. The place isn't as big of a pigsty as I expected but it is bad enough for me never want to visit there again. I dodge a pile of toilet paper sitting by the door and head into the first stall out of three. By the time I reach the second I am ready to run away screaming and never come back. If I suggested searching the public toilets for it not to be in here, then I will never forgive myself for the suggestion in the first place.
"Is it safe!" I turn to see The Doctor standing with one arm over his eyes and his other waving around in front of him so he doesn't walk into something. It's weird how much I see innocence in him as well as what seems to be a great amount of knowledge. It's like the two should cancel themselves out but instead they create a man who appears completely amazing.
"Doctor! You're about to walk into a pile of- Oh... never mind.." A laugh escapes me as he pulls his arm away from his eyes and looks around wildly to find the same toilet paper hill I had encountered before, now squashed flat on the floor.
"What was-" He begins to ask before I put my hand up to stop him. I try to keep my face as straight as possible as an opportunity for ultimate teasing appears before me.
"It's better you don't know." My voice is low and solemn, The Doctor seems to take me seriously for a moment looking horrified before he finally sees me biting my lip desperately trying to stop the inevitable laughter rising up my throat.
"Oh Ha Ha. Very funny. Pick on the guy trying to save the world." He takes in the mess in the bathroom and frowns. "You definitely are a great worker Lia Marie."
"Hey! Don't look at me! I'm not in charge of cleaning. I was only helping out with the sweeping because the Cleaner didn't turn up for work today." I say defensively as I look behind the third toilet. "Uh... does the device look all technological and have weird lights all over it?"
He races forward and I move out of his way, It would be horrible to interrupt someone who looks so determined. He picks up the item that seems to be like a black version of what they used as cell phones in the 80's. Even so It looked the size of a brick with little flashing red lights sprinkled all over it and seems more complicated than anything I've witnessed in my entire life.
"This is definitely the device. Exactly where you said it would be! What a coincidence..." If I were to say he looked at me with distrust, that would be a lie. He looked at me like he could destroy me if I tried anything dangerous, and in that second I was actually afraid of him, even though I'm innocent! I actually feel bad for the guy who did this if The Doctor ever catches up with him. That is, if I survive the Doctor's suspicion first.
Hello fellow readers, how are you liking the story? It's amazing right!
Thank you so much hyperdragon97 for both the amazing cover and the review.