Author's Note: Both Fenton Hardy Fan and Namialus worked on this chapter.
After they had dropped off the creature, Natalie sat on one of the chairs in front of the TARDIS console. "You said all of space and time," Nat reminded the strange man in a blue suit.
"I did," said the Doctor. "Any particular place?"
"Where are you from?" asked Natalie, but quickly regretted it. The Doctor's smile vanished and he bowed his head. "Uh, sorry…"
"Just not there," said the Doctor.
"Why not?" Natalie asked, without thinking.
"Because it's not a good place," he said. "Not anymore."
"Fine. What are you?"
"What?" said the Doctor.
"You don't talk about us like you're human. Which would make you an alien. What are you?" Natalie had always been a curious child, always asking questions until she annoyed whoever she was asking. Annoying the Doctor may not have been the wisest choice, but Nat had to know.
"I'm a Time Lord, from Gallifrey," he replied.
"Gallifrey? That's your homeworld? It doesn't sound too bad," Natalie smiled. "I'm sure it's beautiful."
"It's gone."
Natalie stared at the Doctor. He had been a happy man when she'd first seen him. Now he looks… lonely... heartbroken even. Natalie marveled at the change, and looked back with an expression almost of pity. "Why is it gone?"
"You ask too many questions," the Doctor said.
"So I've been told," said Nat.
"I destroyed it," he answered her right before she decided he would never respond. Natalie's eyes widened. "You wanted to know, didn't you? I destroyed my planet. I destroyed Gallifrey. And now I'm running away, just a sad little man in a box."
"I- I'm sorry," Natalie frowned. "I didn't mean to bother you like that." She needed to ask one more question after this horrible revelation, "Why did you destroy it?"
"You really don't know when to stop, do you?" the Doctor faintly smiled at her. "It was a war, and both sides had to be stopped. The Daleks… and my people. So I ended it. I had to."
"Daleks?"
"You don't want to know."
Natalie let the subject drop; mentioning Daleks brought a steely look into The Doctor's eyes that she found alarming, especially from a man who claimed to have killed his entire species. A little thought rattling in the back of her mind came to the forefront as the man finally looked down at his ship's controls. She should go home. Already she had been attacked by an, Ak, Aka, Akyum... Swamp Monster Guy, twice. Then she'd gotten a glimpse of an alien world with a very long name as she had helped The Doctor drag the... Alien out of the TARDIS. Apparently this machine also traveled through time and she could get home before Sherlock began, and her parents would hardly approve of her accepting a trip from a complete stranger, even if it were educational.
Glancing up from his lever pulling, button pushing, dial tapping, and who knew what else, The Doctor asked, "So, where would you like to go-" he interrupted himself, "What's your name?"
"Natalie," she purposely did not give her last name, to do so would have felt wrong somehow, like using it on the internet.
"Well, Natalie, all of time and space," he smiled at her fetchingly, "and I'm offering you a trip to any of it. Any time, any person, any object, any place, any event, what would you like?"
She hesitated.
Seeing this, he continued, "Give me a chance to make up for the Akuayam attacking you."
She heard such loneliness in his voice, but she needed to turn him down, needed to do as her parents would want, needed to go home. But while her mind talked her in one direction, in her heart she wanted to stay here a little while longer; she could almost feel adventure floating in the air. "I... I should go..." Natalie made the mistake of looking into the man's eyes and discovered she could not look away. Helplessly she gazed back at him, reading so much sorrow and kindness in his face even as he smiled cheerily.
"You like the show "Sherlock?" asked The Doctor, confirming her previous mention of the program.
Glad to answer such an easy query, she nodded vigorously, "I love it."
"Who's your favorite?"
"Sherlock."
"How would you like," he paused to dramatically spin a weird looking thing on the control board, "to meet Benedict Cumberbatch?"
We could do that?" asked Natalie incredulously, eyes widening.
"Oh Benedict and I go way back. We could swing by, watch a bit of filming, perhaps pick up an autograph, and then have you home before anyone ever knew you were away. What do you say?"
"I say," Natalie felt torn. Why did she feel as if her answer now might effect the rest of her life? That would be silly, one trip with this man could not shape her destiny. Taking a deep breath, she finally answered, "Let's go."
The Doctor stopped talking and Clara allowed him a second's pause, but no more. "Did she get his autograph?" she asked, hoping this would nudge him along.
"What?" he snapped out of whatever reverie consumed his mind,"Of course she did, once we'd cleared up the point that I was in fact the same 'Doctor' as the one with the frilly shirt, and the one with the insanely long scarf, and the one with the celery, and the one with the shoulder length hair."
After this answer failed to move along the conversation, Clara reopened the diary. She flipped through a few pages, ah yes, here was Natalie's recounting of her day on the set of "The Blind Banker." Not surprisingly, their return journey failed to work as The Doctor planned. Instead of landing near her house just in time for Natalie to catch the first episode of "Series 4," the two of them landed on a nearly deserted mining spaceship under attack from a shape-shifting creature. Turning ahead, Clara observed that she and The Doctor traveled afterwards to Ancient Greece to see the Parthenon. As she read, Clara found herself remembering her own first trips with the Time Lord. Eventually, she found Natalie's record of an event which she recognized as one of importance. The Doctor and Natalie had just finished another adventure on the red mining spaceship, and The Doctor was cracking jokes about all of time and space and still managing to accidentally run into the same lousy ship twice. But then, as Natalie put it: I started to head back to the the bedroom he had assigned to me a couple of adventures ago, when he grabbed my shoulder and kept me from leaving. In his other hand I saw he held a simple key strung on a brown cord. "This is for you," he said as he let the key fall from his grip to swing gently from its string. "What is it?" I asked, taking it out of curiosity. "This," The Doctor let go of the cord as he answered, "is a key to the door of my TARDIS." I must have looked pretty surprised because he smiled at me and said I deserved it. To be honest, I did not yet realize the implications of what he had just done, but I hung it around my neck anyway. I flat out asked what this meant, (you know me Diary, I'm always asking questions,) and he looked at me with an expression I would expect parents make at their children's graduation ceremonies. "It means, Natalie, that the TARDIS is your home now, if you want it to be." Home. yes, I could see this ship becoming my home, a sentiment which has only grown in me with each passing hour since he first told me. I find it funny now when I read over my indecision about coming on my first trip, funny and sad; I almost passed on traveling with the most incredible man to the most amazing places! Every now and then I want to go back to my family, but I know if I do then I probably won't be allowed to come back. And as much as I liked Church and Youth Group and Homeschooling through high school, I don't think I could face an endless stretch of such a life anymore. I'm like John now, addicted to a certain lifestyle of action and adventure. Probably, I should be bothered by this, but I'm not. P.S. I still haven't seen "Sherlock Series 4," but The Doctor says when I wake up maybe we can go catch "Episode 1" in theaters. He even promised we can cosplay at the event if I want. CAN'T WAIT! P.P.S. And honestly, cosplaying would give me the perfect chance to wash my outfit again, I wish I'd been wearing more than one outfit all those days ago, but back in Florida that would have been not only weird but also unbearably hot.