TEAGANNE

There was a soft knock on my bedroom door. "Teaganne? You in there?"
I shuffled to the door and opened it with a soft creak. "Yeah. What's up?"
"Nothing, I just..."
I raised my eyebrows to prompt him to continue. "It's never just nothing."
"I noticed something strange at a hospital in London while we were there, and I wondered if you wanted to check it out?" He let out in a bit of a bumbling rush - unsure and pleading.
"Doctor..." I looked back into my room - I was just getting ready to leave for a bit. "Can you manage on your own? For just a little while-"
His eyes nearly instantly downcast. "You don't want to stay..."
"No!" I opened my door fully and stepped into the corridor where he leaned on the far side, arms and ankles nervously crossed. "I do, I want to stay. I just..."
I swallowed. "I need to tell my parents where I am. They should be back by now."
He leaned off the wall, uncrossing his ankles and loosening his arms. "Fine, fine."
"I'll drop you off first thing in the morning."

...

DOCTOR

She stood on her toes on an old, wooden bench. Her head up-cast and looking at the blue of the cloudless sky. Her arms dangled down and her wrists hovered beside her hips. She hadn't even flinched or dropped her eyes when I landed, her mind stayed up in the clouds. I stayed at the edge against the blue and watched her a moment. The gentle breeze of the afternoon flitted through her as if she was a ghost, transparent and see-through. The hem of her Lilac tank top danced with the wind, riding up and showing skin, but she seemed not to mind.

I leaned forward and walked towards her. The blades of short, green grass ruffling gently underneath my sneakers and the wind swam freely over my head. When I reached the bench, I sat. Before I got to say anything, a crystalline voice pierced the silence.

"Four days." Was all she said.

I looked up and a pair of watery, green eyes looked down. Her face was pale and she had faint, cosmic dips under her eyes as though she hadn't slept for all four of the days I was gone.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

She took a deep breath and fell down on the bench beside me. "No."

"What happened?"

She pulled out the slab of gold I recognized as her phone and unlocked it. She flipped through some things and handed it to me. There was a voicemail from the night that she found me. I clicked on it with my thumb and the recording began to play.

Hey, you've reached the voicemail of Teaganne Kane, please leave a message and I'll call you back later! *Beep*

Ms. Kane, this is the Manitoba Police Department. We regret to inform you that your parents, Lindsey and Benedict Kane have perished. Their car was hit head on by another car on the highway and they were instantly killed. The driver sends his condolences and is deeply sorry. We advise you to call the Manitoba Police Department when you get this message. *Click*

Teaganne had started to silently sob so I awkwardly wrapped an arm around her shaking shoulders.

"There was nothing you could've done."

"I could have been there." She cried.

"Would being there have saved them?"

She shook her head into my shoulder where I could feel her hot, salty tears penetrating my suit jacket.

"There are times where we can change things, but there are also the times that are fixed and permanent. Death is one of them." I told her. "Your parents were always going to die that day."

She snuffed and pulled her head from my shoulder.

"They weren't my real parents, but they were all I had."

"They weren't your real parents?"

"I was adopted. I was found an orphan at two years old and they took me in as newlyweds. They were kind and they cared but I still missed my real family though I couldn't remember them."

I nodded. She seemed to have let out most of her tears and she was only downcast now.

"That's five." I heard her whisper faintly.

"What?"

"People around me that have been killed." she clarified, looking even more depressed. "The count stands at five."

"Five?"

"My parents - my real ones. I don't remember them but I can only assume they're dead. My best friend Rebecca - plane crash. And now Lindsey and Ben." Her stability seemed to be shaking. I could nearly see her sadness in a thunder-cloud above her head. "My life's a wreck."

"Don't say that." I pulled her into a side hug.

"It is!" She wailed. "I can't do anything right!"

"Hey, hey, hey. Where's all this coming from?"

"Everything I've ever worked for in my life just falls down at my feet. Anything I get good at, somebody else does better. Everything in my life is crumbling." she ended in a barely audible whisper, "And I'll be the next to fall."

"I know how you feel." I whispered back. She stopped and looked at me with questioning eyes. "Remember when I told you about the time war?"

"Yeah. You had to destroy your planet."

I swallowed to calm my emotions and bowed my head. "I regret it for a long time after - I still do. I felt like a nuisance to the universe, I wished I could just die."

I raised my head to the sky. "And then there was Rose. She patched me up and gave me hope. When she fell, I felt worse then after the war."

I reached for her hand and held it in mine. "But then there was you. You found me, I didn't find you for once. You gave me hope - you helped me say goodbye - and I can't thank you enough."

She released my hand and threw her arms around me. "Thank you, Doctor."

"I have a new friend." I told her. "Her name is Martha - we met in the hospital."

"Hospital?"

"Judoon platoon upon the moon."

"What?"

"I guess this means you're all alone?"

"I-I guess…"

"Come with us?"