Chapter Sixty: A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away…

Storybrooke – 1983

"Are we actually planning on settling down here?" Rose questioned to the Doctor as the two entered the TARDIS and circled around the console platform.

"Nah! Of course not!" The Doctor was quick to reply. "Unless…you want to."

Rose shrugged with a grin. "It's a nice little place, but I wouldn't imagine making a life here – not with all the weirdness."

"I've taken you to lots of weird places. How's this any different?"

Rose chuckled. "It's not weird in the 'good' way. There's something about this place that…" She stopped once she caught sight of something near the entrance to the TARDIS.

The Doctor, his focus more on the controls, did not see the subject that was the reason for her cutting off in midsentence. "Something about it what?" He waited for her to finish but she didn't say another word, prompting him to look up and see her looking away from him and the console. Following her gaze, the Doctor was shocked to see Owen Flynn standing near the door – which Rose accidentally forgot to close on the way in – and looking in awe at the large room with coral walls. "We really need to be more careful when we walk in here," the Doctor whispered to Rose, who nodded in agreement whilst smiling over their blunder.

"It's bigger on the inside!" Owen excitedly exclaimed as the Doctor rushed in his direction and closed the door, not wanting anyone else outside the TARDIS to waltz right in like Owen did.

"Yes! So it is!" The Doctor inconspicuously remarked. "Uh, Owen? Would you mind telling us where your father is?"

"He's still at the Bed & Breakfast." Owen said. "I told him that I'd go for a walk through town."

"And you just happened to walk right into this blue box." The Doctor satirically added.

"Well, yeah," said an amused Owen. "You see two people going into a police box that's rarely found in America and of course you'd expect something's up." The little boy could not stop gawking over the enormity of the room, considering how much smaller the box was outside. "What's keeping it all in? Is it like a physics thing or something?"

The Doctor was doing all he could to usher the boy out of the TARDIS. "Yes, yes. It's a physics thing. It was nice of you to stop by, but Rose and I have to…"

"Are you two aliens?" Owen bluntly questioned.

"He is." Rose clarified for the boy. "I'm human like you – just from the future."

"How far into the future?" Owen inquired, joining Rose on the console platform – there was no way for the Doctor to get him out any quicker now.

"Twenty-three years." Rose said; unlike the Doctor, she was glad to see Owen so interest in them and the TARDIS.

"Far out!" Owen cried before turning to the Doctor and asking, "Since you're alien, could you take me to Endor?"

The Doctor didn't quite catch the request. "I'm sorry. Where?"

"Endor." Owen repeated. "You know, from Return of the Jedi?"

The Doctor exchanged a quick glance with Rose, who found Owen's request to be quite adorable – the whole thing had her beaming with amusement. "No. Sorry. I can't," he despondently told the boy.

"What about Tatooine?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Nope."

"Dagobah?"

"Nuh-uh."

"Not even the Death Star?"

"I'm sorry, Owen. I'm so sorry, but all of that is fantasy. The TARDIS can't take you to any such places." He saw the look of disappointment on the boy's face and felt truly bad for him. It was that look that convinced the Doctor to show him the same wonders that he had been showing Rose on their recent journey through time and space. "But," he added while leaping onto the console platform, "it can take you places that are even better than fiction."

He operated the controls to the excitement of Owen, who suddenly heard the unusual sound of the TARDIS dematerializing – a sound that the Doctor and Rose were all too familiar with. Once the process had passed, he led Owen and Rose over to the door and opened it to reveal their new location: a planet where the skies were made entirely of rainbows, the buildings were made of chrome and literally touched the stars, and the ground was made of rubber. Owen, who was beyond ecstatic, briefly stepped out of the TARDIS and instantaneously bounced on what looked like concrete. He bounced on the street corner of the alien city that the TARDIS had materialized in, happier than a child in a bounce house. Rose and the Doctor were delighted to see the boy so happy, even though there were creatures of various races walking (or a variation of walking that resembled bouncing) by Owen and giving him strange looks.

After Owen had his fun on the planet of Rumbius, the Doctor took him to other worlds that the boy had only dreamed of seeing or wished he could see. A few of the worlds did in fact remind him of something out of Star Wars – one planet called Karu was a planet of snow and ice just like Hoth from The Empire Strikes Back. For Owen, the journey through the different planets in the various galaxies lasted days – perhaps even weeks; and it could have lasted even longer since the TARDIS was a time machine, and he could be returned to Storybrooke at any time.

"I wish Dad could be here to see all of this." Owen said. "He'd flip!"

"Well, for his sake, just make sure to keep this between us, O.K.?" The Doctor requested. "The last thing we'd want to do is…"

VWOORMP! BOOM!

Without warning, the TARDIS lurched violently from one side to another, nearly knocking them away from the controls. The fierce tremor caught them all off guard. The Doctor fanatically worked on getting the TARDIS back under control, spinning around the control panel and operating every control in front of him.

"Doctor?" Rose uneasily said. "What's goin' on?"

"The TARDIS is off-course in its reentry into Storybrooke!" The Doctor shouted in panic. "I can't get us to land back there!"

In the midst of the chaos happening over the console room, Rose looked to her side and discovered one little boy missing from their party. "Owen?" She looked all around and saw that the boy had completely vanished from the room. "Where did he go?" The Doctor saw himself of the boy's disappearance and grew gradually concerned.