The Doctor blinked his eyes blearily. Where was he? He looked around and jumped back. Five faces were peering anxiously at him. Well four faces, one of them looked just grumpy. "Who are you?" he asked sitting up.
"I'll be asking the questions here. Who are you, and what do you know about us?" The grumpy one asked.
"I'm the Doctor," he straightened his bow tie. "And I don't know who you are, why don't you tell me."
The grumpy man sighed. "I'm Artie...now then introductions are over. What do you know about us?" he repeated.
"What about those four?" The Doctor pointed to three women and another man.
Artie looked back at them. The silence hung in the air, until one of them gasped. "My god your aura! I've never seen anything like it!"
"My what?" asked the Doctor curiously.
At the same time a woman with long dark hair asked her friend, "why? What does it look like?"
"The night sky, with a nebulae twisting and turning, and stars. Oh the stars burn brightly on him," Leena sighed. She really was amazed, most auras she saw were only three colors at the most. But his, well it truly was like the night sky.
The Doctor frowned. He was a man of science, he didn't usually believe in 'auras'...he decided to go with a safe question. "Who are you?"
The African American woman responded first. "I'm Leena, these are my friends. Pete, Myka, and Claudia."
Claudia looked more closely at him than turned to Artie. "He dresses like you," she laughed.
Artie's mouth flopped open. The Doctor just stared at her, neither of the old men could tell whether or not it was a complement...or an insult. Before long the Doctor touched his bow tie self consciously and muttered, "Bow ties are cool." This made Claudia laugh even harder, while the Doctor just stared at her.
"No more tom foolery," grumbled Artie. "How did you get into the warehouse?"
"The what?" asked the Doctor mildly.
"The. Warehouse." Artie repeated through gritted teeth.
"Oh, I'm inspector John Smith from Interpol code named the Doctor...uh I just decided to pop in and check on you guys, can't let you Americans have all the fun," lied the Doctor easily, he held up his ID.
"Oh I see-" Artie started saying, definitely appeased, when Claudia cut in.
"It's blank," she said coldly, staring at his 'ID'.
The Doctor looked at it and said, "So it is."
The other three- Pete, Myka and Leena- just shook their heads trying to clear them, while Artie resumed glaring at the Doctor. "So Doctor," said Artie suspiciously, "how did you get into the warehouse?"
The Doctor sighed. "My ship was taken there. I regained consciousness and started to explore, when I was rudely blasted in the face by some disgusting purple substance. Then I woke up here."
Artie's eye's narrowed. "Oh really? We didn't have any new shipments of ships."
"That call box? That's my ship," the Doctor said examining the room.
"Your ship?" Myka asked skeptically.
"Well it's not really a call box," the Doctor explained. "It's a Tardis. I use it to fly through time and space." They all gave him blank stares, although Claudia looked like there was something she was trying to recall from somewhere. He tried again, "It's bigger on the inside. It makes this sound," he attempted a very bad impression of the sound the Tardis made. "Nothing?" they continued there blank stares, which were turning into the look he's mad...
"A what?" asked Leena.
"It's an acronym. It stands for-" The doctor started, but found himself being interrupted by Claudia.
"It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions In Space," she said nodding her head at the Doctor.
"How do you know that?" asked Pete. The Doctor could only stare at her in wonder, and a little bit of admiration
"When I hacked into UNIT's database a link came up about the Tardis...plus it makes sense for what he's describing. It moves through time and space, that's the time and space part, then it's bigger on the inside which is all about relative dimensions," Claudia explained. The Doctor had decided (as she had said her speech) that he liked this one.
"Who are...where do you..."Myka couldn't seem to process all this, to the point where she couldn't even string together words to form a sentence.
"So you're an alien?" asked Pete with great enthusiasm.
The Doctor frowned. "Well, what are they saying these days? Oh right. Well duh! I happen to be nine hundred years old."
"Nine hundred years old? So you must be the same age as Artie, makes sense since you dress a like," laughed Claudia. Both men in question turned to glare at her. For Artie it was because he was not nine hundred years old, and for the Doctor, well he felt he dressed much better than the old slob. Which was true, there was a mustard stain on Artie's shirt from lunch, although Artie had the sense not to wear bow ties.
Finally the Doctor stopped glaring at Claudia and asked, "well you guys know who I am, who are you?"
Artie decided to answer, "we are the agents of warehouse thirteen. I like to call it America's Attic," here he was interrupted by the Doctor.
"Isn't that the name of the Smithsonian?" as he said it he knew he had crossed a line. It was now his turn to be glared at by Artie.
"Yes," he said coldly, "but there are no other names for it."
Then Pete decided to pipe up with his own input, "I think it should be called The World's Junk drawer. But Mr. I-am-as-old-as-time-itself-and-I-still-can't-use-a-computer vetoed it."
"That's cause it's a dumb name," Claudia interjected. "I prefer Artifact Roadshow." The Doctor broke out into a grin. This one was clever.
"Anyways," Artie grumbled, "our job is to snag, bag and tag the most dangerous artifacts before they can cause much harm."
"Oh," the Doctor said. "And what makes up these artifacts."
Artie sighed, there was going to be a long explanation. "Leena, will you go get us some lemonade?" she nodded and left the room. Artie continued, "artifacts have had a hand in either making people famous, or something they used, or touched. It either turned them into who they were, or they made the artifact. For example Faberge's tool box was used by Faberge to create beautiful things. Thus now whoever has the box has the same abilities as Faberge himself, but there are side effects. For poor Faberge it was greed, and lust for power...and eventually after the Romanov's fell, well heart break. All of these are symptoms of the box...we're still not sure if it's because of Faberge that these things are imbued onto the box, or if it worked on Faberge."
As Artie had been talking, the Doctor had been getting confused. A first for him, which made him more confused. Claudia had noticed this and felt some sympathy for him..after all it was a bit hard to be thrown into all this. Finally after a moment or two of silence the Doctor asked, "so it's like horcruxes?"
"Excuse me?" asked Artie blinking his eyes rather rapidly. What was this mad man with a box talking about?
Claudia got the reference immediately and answered, "uh kinda...in some ways, and not at all in others."
The Doctor nodded. He got it now. Leena returned bringing lemonade and sat down. "It makes sense that your aura is so different. After all you've seen so much. What's it like?"
"Lot's of running," the Doctor said in a light tone. Leena, Pete, and Claudia laughed. They thought he was joking, if only they were right.
"Artie can I talk to you out in the hall?" Myka said quietly.
Artie followed her out, where she then closed the door to the drawing room. "What is it?"
"I don't trust him," Myka said, looking back to where the others were. "There is no way he is an alien, and there is no way he was in the call box. What if he's a spy?"
"Hm, yes he could be, " Artie said thoughtfully. "We better keep an eye on him."
They reentered the drawing room to find the Doctor talking. "A lot of the times I use my sonic screw driver, it's here-" he reached into his left breast pocket, then his right. No not there...he slowly checked all his pockets where is it? Could they have taken it? But why...Where, no not there..did I leave it in the Tardis? Doubt it, where in-
"Everything okay Doctor?" asked Leena.
"No, my sonic isn't here. Have any of you seen it? About this long, made of metal with a light on the end?" They all shook their heads.
"It could of fallen when we were riding the cable car," Pete suggested. "After all it was a bit of a bumpy ride, and you weren't even on a chair..."
"How far is it from the box aisle to the offices?" the Doctor asked with a sinking suspicion.
"Umm pretty far," said Claudia, paling at the countless amounts of nooks and crannies they would have to search.
"Well come on then," the Doctor said leading the way out the door. When he realized no one was following him he turned around. "What is it now?"
"It's pretty big, how are we going to find it?" asked Pete.
"I have a tracking device in my Tardis. Now come on."
This time they all followed him out, some more reluctant than others.
AN thanks for all the comments I've been getting. It's so awesome, and totally inspires me to keep writing. So thank you all. Also if you feel moved to please leave a review letting me know your thoughts :)...tbc