Chapter I
"This is odd." commented the Tenth Doctor looking at the TARDIS controls. "What is it?" asked Rose coming up from behind him. "Not sure, maybe a little interference with the time vortex or something. Just want to be sure I'm getting you back to the right London this time. Wouldn't want a repeat of that cybermen incident again now would we?" the Doctor mused. "A-ha! There we go!" the Doctor exclaimed, flipping a few switches and whirling a few knobs. The familiar swoosh of the TARDIS engines signaling their arrival back in London. Rose opened the door expecting to see her home with not a zeppelin in the sky. Instead she walked out into a humid forest of the American South. "Doctor? What is this? I thought we were going to London?" asked Rose. The Doctor walked out and took a look around. "Hmmph. This is interesting." He said then fiddled with his sonic screwdriver pointing it at the sky then back at the TARDIS. "We appear to be in Virginia around the year 2015." The Doctor remarked. "Virginia? Why are we in Virginia?" asked Rose. "That's a good question." replied the Doctor. "Suppose I'll go check something.." the Doctor started to head back to the TARDIS but froze when he heard the cocking of a gun. "Don't move and drop that thing in your hand." a gruff voice from behind him demanded. "What is it with you human's and your guns, always pointing them at people." The Doctor chided as he turned back around. "That's enough!" Rick demanded, pulling back the hammer on his revolver. "All right, all right don't get testy now." the Doctor remarked and dropped his sonic screwdriver. "Daryl, Glen." Rick called over to his friends that were hiding in the trees. Daryl approached Rose while Glen picked up the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. All of the sudden they heard a snarling sound followed by the emergence of a walker out of the underbrush to the east. Without hesitation Daryl shot the walker between the eyes and went to retrieve his arrow. "Only one this time. We're lucky." Rick grumbled. "What the devil was that? A zombie?" Rose exclaimed. "Keep your voice down miss; you'll attract more of them." Rick said. "You must really have no idea where you are? Did you sleep through everything in that phone booth over there?" Rick asked. "Actually it's a police box." the Doctor corrected him. "Shut up." Rick retorted. "Now I don't know what a zombie is but that there is a walker. They used to be people like us until they died. Then they came back as those things. Now I'll cut ya'll some slack since I missed out on what happened when the world went to shit myself." Rick explained. "Now if you would come with us. We'll see what to do with you back at our community." Rick told them. Rick, Daryl and Glen led the Doctor and Rose to the gates of Alexandria. "It's ok, they're with us Carol." Rick called up to Carol who was watching the gate. The gate opened and Rick and company were met by Carl. "Carl get back in the house!" Rick shouted. Carl did as he was told and Rick took the Doctor and Rose down to what had been the room where his group was interviewed when they first arrived in Alexandria.
"If you would take a seat." Rick told the Doctor and Rose, directing them to a couch. Glenn and Daryl stood at either side of them. "Now I'll ask you again, what were ya'll doing snooping around the woods over there?" Rick asked, picking back up his harsh tone from when he first met the Doctor. "We were lost. If you hadn't have shown up brandishing your weapons we would have been merrily on our way. If you let us go now we'll be off and out of your hair lickety split." the Doctor replied. "We've run into too many unsavory characters out there. You should understand we would be skeptical of just letting you go now that we've brought you here. "said Rick. "We've got ourselves a safe place here and we've had to do things we weren't proud of to keep it that way. We can't let anyone jeopardize what we've built here." Rick continued. "Safe? From what?" Rose asked. "The walkers, those things out there. You really are dense lady." Daryl said in his soft melodic, grumbling voice. "Those woods where we found you are crawling with walkers. I'm surprised you're not more familiar with them." Glenn commented. "Or how you survived with nothing but that little pen light to protect yourself." Daryl added. "It's called a sonic screwdriver, please get your terminology right." the Doctor corrected him. "You really are clueless. Well let me fill you in then. A couple years ago the world all went to shit, people started dying from some disease, we're not sure what exactly caused it but that's not the worst part. After they died those people came back as walkers and it continued on that way. Civilization crumbled and now the dead outnumber the living by a pretty hefty margin." Rick explained. "I have a question, what year is it?" asked the Doctor. "We haven't kept the best track of time since the world became well, like this. It all started back around 2010 or so we think." Rick told him. "Oh my God. Doctor that's only a couple years ahead of my time..." Rose whispered to the Doctor. "Rose this is not your timeline. Remember the fourth great and bountiful human empire? It's like that, something feels off about all of this." the Doctor whispered back. None of what they were saying made any sense to Rick and the others. "Say, what was that box you were staying in?" Daryl inquired. The Doctor decided to come clean. It's not like they could steal the TARDIS from him, he was the only one who could pilot it, besides the TARDIS' security measures would make sure they never got inside. "It's called a TARDIS, that stands for time and relative dimension in space. It only looks like a police box because the cloaking device froze that way. It's really much bigger on the inside." the Doctor explained. Rick, Daryl and Glenn all stared at the Doctor with a blank thousand yard stare. "What?" Rick blankly asked. "It's a time machine." the Doctor simply stated. "It also goes in space." Rose added. "A time machine? You really expect me to believe that nonsense?" asked Rick. "Believe it or not, that's your call, I'm simply telling you how it is." the Doctor replied. "Riiight." Daryl sarcastically commented. "Well whether or not his whimsical story is true or he's just crazy as a loon he doesn't seem dangerous. Perhaps this guy and his girlfriend could join our community. Honestly we need all the people we can get." Glenn suggested. "She's not my girlfriend, she's my companion." the Doctor corrected Glenn but was ignored as Rick started talking over him. "I wouldn't go on offering these guys full membership in the group just yet." Rick rebuffed Glenn. "I mean we don't even know their names." Rick added, this time with a more playful tone in his voice. It was the first time the Doctor had noticed him break from his deathly serious composure. "Oh, well I'm Rose Tyler and this is the Doctor." Rose introduced the both of them. "We could use a doctor around here, especially after what happened to the last one." Glenn commented. He was starting to see their guests as a potential gain for the community. They weren't like the others out there, cold, animalistic, and ruthless; they also couldn't have survived out there if they were as naive to the ways of the world as the original inhabitants of Alexandria were. In a way the Doctor and his companion were the best of both worlds it seemed, having the wit and fortitude to survive this long but doing so without losing their humanity, something neither he nor Rick could truly claim to have achieved. "Doctor who?" asked Rick. "It's just the Doctor." replied the Doctor. "That's really all there is, he's just the Doctor." Rose confirmed after seeing Rick's face wrinkle in confusion. "We can just call him Doctor X, like the guy from the X-men." Daryl suggested. "It's actually Professor X." Glenn corrected him. "Figures that a chinaman would know his comic book characters." Daryl snarkily responded. "I thought we went over this before, I'm Korean not Chinese." Glenn told Daryl. "Chinese, Japanese it's all the same thing." Daryl jokingly replied. "Well fine, Doctor X it is, what kind of doctor are you? We could really use a good surgeon around here. Things can get pretty rough and folks need to get patched up you know." Rick asked as he was starting to come around to the idea that the Doctor and Rose could be trusted. "I'm not that kind of doctor, actually more like a scientist although my knowledge of human anatomy could suffice for mending minor wounds and such, would have to bear in mind that you people only have one heart but I suppose..." the Doctor started to ramble. "Alright, alright, that's fine." Rick stopped him. "Last guy we had who said he was a scientist turned out to be full of shit." Daryl commented. "Eugene still has his uses even if he couldn't undo the apocalypse." Glenn said, sticking up for Eugene. "Stop the apocalypse, Doctor we.." Rose started to whisper to the Doctor. "Don't you even say it Rose, you know we can't." the Doctor rebuked her. Rick pretended not to notice them whispering to each other. "Well, well. I think we should all sleep on it before we decide what to do with our guests." Rick said while standing up and stretching. "Glenn, if you could find them suitable lodging for the night and post a guard on them." Rick instructed Glenn. "For our protection, and yours." Rick turned to the Doctor and explained. "Quite understandable." the Doctor replied. It seemed a fine turnaround for these brutes to go from wanting to kill them to being a tad wary of them while at the same time offering them whatever creature comforts this scruffy smelly version of Earth had to offer them. The Doctor and Rose stood up and followed Glenn to a two story house a block away from the wall. As they left Rick turned to Daryl and sighed. "Keep an eye on them. Worst case we could have an unhinged nut running about here; best case they could be everything Eugene was not." Rick told Daryl. "No problem. They seem a little too clean for wandering around out there. Perhaps they're with another community we don't know about, someplace bigger, more secure." Daryl replied. "You talking about those rumors we heard about Hilltop?" asked Rick. "Just sayin'. Maybe we get these guys to open up and we find out if we've got an enemy or a trading partner out there." Daryl replied. "Remember sheriff, you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar." Daryl said before he left.