A/N: So things aren't as confusing in a part in the reading, this chapter takes place during the time when the Doctor has been purposefully deleting himself from history after Silencio. Needless to say, Nova does not know this and won't for a while.

As always, favs and reviews are greatly appreciated and will also keep me motivated to post more. Even if you don't have anything to say about it besides "great story," I'm totally okay with that. It'd at least let me know you're enjoying the story.

Chapter 8: Doctor Blue Box

That night, I dreamt of the blue box.

Even though my original plan was to stay awake and defend Hazel and her brother from psychotic extraterrestrials that I may or may not have unintentionally attracted to their house, I must've fallen asleep on the job, because the next thing I knew, I was back in my infant body, being carried in the strong arms of my bow tie-wearing bio-father to the large room with the house-key-scraping sound and the bizarre cylindrical column at its center.

Since I was seven, I've had this dream on more than one occasion, and everything that happened has been the same, except for as I was growing older in real life, I started noticing some differences. One difference I noticed was that the blurry vision that a typical infant would have would gradually become clearer, and I would start to see the world around me in sharper detail. For example, I had discovered that the strange column had what looked like a collection of teardrops stacked on top of each other and suspended inside a glass cylinder, which were often seen moving up and down in sync with the house-key-scraping noise. The base of the column, about waist-height, had at least five panels that were topped with small buttons and dials, much like the control console of a futuristic steam engine. It was surprising how much more detail I could see as I got older, even through the eyes of an infant, and I supposed that was normal, even for humans.

Another difference I noticed, at least this time, was that the dream had been extended. This time, instead of the dream ending where my bio-father would hand me over to my bio-mother to have her carry me away from him to who-knows-where, I actually saw where she was taking me. While watching the world over my bio-mom's shoulder, I saw that she carried me outside the room to a dark place with lots of trees, possibly a forest or park at night, and standing in the middle, but also partially obscured by trees, was a large blue box with lit windows and a sign that bore the words "Police Public Call Box." It was unlike any box I had ever seen—of course not, because at the time I had only been in the world a few days at most—although, at the same time, I had also felt a sort of familiarity about it, and also a slight sadness, like I was leaving a place that I called home, possibly forever. It wasn't until my bio-mom had kissed me one last time and handed me over to who would become my mother-guardian that I woke up, back in my sixteen-year-old body in my best friend's bedroom.

Thankfully, I didn't wake up to any alien threats standing over Hazel's bed, but I did feel a sense of confusion. That blue box I'd seen in my dream didn't look right. One thing that was obvious about it, and also what was the most confusing about it, was that the box appeared to be bigger on the inside. That large room, which I guessed was a control room of sorts, looked like it had been crammed inside a tiny box that looked no bigger than a garden shed, at least from the outside. For something so small to have a much bigger interior like that was completely impossible…wasn't it, I wondered?

Unless that box—or rather, spaceship—was from another planet, then maybe it was possible, but it certainly wasn't possible on this planet; at least, I didn't think it was. Either way, it was unusual and was definitely something worth looking into, especially since it looked exactly like the blue box Hazel and I saw while we were leaving the arcade; even the four words printed on the sign at the top of each side were the same.

While Hazel continued to sleep, I quietly hopped on her computer at her desk (I figured she wouldn't mind) and researched anything and everything to do with police boxes, especially ones that were bigger on the inside. Even though I didn't find any bigger-on-the-inside boxes (typical, I thought), I did find information on police boxes in general, one thing being that they were used back in the nineteen-fifties, which Hazel was right about. I even researched what they looked like, and I discovered that they looked almost exactly like the one we saw at the arcade and also in my dream; however, there didn't seem to be any mention of anyone seeing the boxes appearing and disappearing magically, or spotting them in places people would frequently visit that wouldn't normally be seen there.

Since this didn't seem to help me, I then started combining "blue box" with the things I'd been researching throughout my childhood. It wasn't until I typed "doctor blue box" into the Search Bar that I finally received some promising results. One thing that got my attention right away was the sixth result down, labeled " .uk," which was clearly a European page. I clicked it, and it brought me to a page that bore "HAVE YOU SEEN THE DOCTOR?" in large lettering, along with a photo of a man I didn't recognize with close-cropped hair and a worn leather jacket, the rest of the photo purposefully blurred out, probably because of copyright or something. Underneath the image was a long text that read, "I'm giving you this information so you can see I'm a normal bloke, not a crackpot. But if you've come this far, then I suspect you've seen him. The Doctor. And if you've seen him, then I wonder, was it at a time of great peril? Was there danger? Disaster? Even death? Because these are his harbingers and helpmeets. If you have seen the Doctor, your life has been touched by something extraordinary. And doubtless you're wondering: who is he? Well, faithful reader, I am here to tell you: I HAVE THE ANSWER!" and below that, the author's name (Clive Finch) and his contact info.

After reading the paragraph, my first thought was that this guy was completely nutty, and I almost 'X'ed out of the browser right there and then, but when I looked through the paragraph a second time, I realized that the things mentioned, like "disaster" and "death," were things I had personally experienced, but I had never met any 'Doctor' during any of those times, certainly no one that looked like the leather jacket guy in the photo.

I searched through the website some more, and I saw that there was a whole gallery of 'Doctors,' each labeled by number, which I thought was odd. At first, I thought these guys would be related in some way, like as part of a family, but when I clicked through each one, I noticed that one man was completely different from the previous one, but yet every photo was similar, showing the men running to or from something, but always running nonetheless; more than that, in several photos, there was a familiar blue box just seemingly hanging out in the background.

It wasn't until I clicked through the photos labeled "11" that my hearts went into overdrive. These photos showed a face I knew all too well—a man with a cone-shaped yet youthful face, floppy brown hair, and wore a tweed jacket and bow tie. In some photos, he was seen running with three other people—a young man with short light-brown hair, a young woman with bright red hair, and another familiar woman with massively curly hair that looked much like the young man and redheaded woman. Although, sometimes the curly-haired woman was not pictured with the other two, or both the curly-haired woman and Doctor would be seen together, but the other two wouldn't. I guessed it depended on who the Doctor was travelling with when the photo was taken.

After looking through all these photos, I realized that the bow tie-wearing 'Doctor' looked exactly like the guy in my dream. Based on this fact, one thing stayed in my mind: this man—the Doctor—was my father, and all the other men were his past selves, meaning he could regenerate, just like me. He wasn't human, again just like me. At least, these were just theories, but I was ninety-percent certain they were real.

I couldn't believe it! I had finally found something that related to my ancestry. I just had to contact this 'Clive' guy, and I could finally find out who and what I was; maybe he was close to my father, or at least one of his 'selves.'

I wasn't going to let this opportunity go to waste. I immediately clicked the link to Clive's contact info, and I wrote down his number on a sticky-note. Then, I grabbed my phone and crept quietly to the bathroom across the hall, locked myself in, and immediately called the number, but not before checking the time, as the UK was six hours ahead in relation to Central Standard Time. It was about 7am our time, which meant that in the UK it was about 1pm; hopefully I wasn't going to interrupt his lunchtime.

When I called Clive's number, I received an error-message, saying that "the call cannot be reached because of [insert list of reasons here]," and I assumed the number had been disconnected somehow. I then checked his site again, as my phone also had Internet-access, and sure enough there was another number that connected with one 'Caroline Finch,' whom I assumed was Clive's wife or relative. I typed in Caroline's number from memory into my phone and called, and this time there was a proper connection.

"Hello?" A weary female British voice asked after a few rings.

"Uh…hi," I answered hesitantly, as I didn't know whether I had the right number or not. "My name is Sydney Elise. Is this Caroline Finch? Are you related to Clive Finch, who made the website about the Doctor?"

There was a short pause before the woman replied, "Yes, Clive was my husband. If you wish to talk to him, I'm sorry, you can't."

I frowned, puzzled. "Um…why not, if you don't mind my asking?" She said 'was,' as if they weren't together anymore; so obviously something happened between them. However, I was scared to know the answer.

"He passed away about eight years ago," Caroline answered with a slight choke to her voice, like she was fighting back tears. "Killed right in front of me and my kids by one of those shop-window dummies back in 2005 when they came to life all over the city. I'm sure you heard about that on the news…"

"Um, yes, I did," I replied, feeling somewhat guilty for making the poor woman relive the memory, "and I'm sorry about what happened to your husband." From what I heard about the incident back then, many innocent people lost their lives that day, and many more people lost their friends and loved ones, all to shop-window dummies, as ridiculous as that sounded. Someone from another world must've been responsible and possessed the mannequins into killing all those people, I thought.

"Um, is it possible we can still talk about that website he made?" I asked, still anxious to know where I came from. "It's just…I think I had an encounter with the Doctor." I then paused, realizing that was a half-lie. "Well, not an actual encounter, like, in person. I just feel like I may have some connection with him, or at least one of them, and I hoped Clive could give me some information on how to contact him—the Doctor, I mean." I purposefully left out my theory that I could be blood-related to the Doctor (that being the so-called 'connection'), simply because I didn't want her to think of me as a weirdo. Even if she did think of me that way, I wouldn't be surprised; many people probably thought of her late husband that way all the time, and anyone who contacted him about his website was probably considered crazy too. I could imagine she and her kids probably dealt with a lot of ridicule over the years because of it.

Caroline chuckled. "You're just like the last girl who asked about the Doctor." She then sighed. "I'm sorry. I wish I could help you, love, but I don't know much about the website at all. Clive didn't really say much about the Doctor to me or my kids."

"Oh," I said, trying not to sound too disappointed. "Okay. I understand. I'm sorry to have bothered you."

Before I could hang up, she spoke up, "But I do still have some of what he had found in storage. Needless to say, I've been trying to get them off my hands for years since my husband died…since I have no further use for them. If you would like to arrange a meeting, I could give you what you need in person."

Oh, good, I thought excitedly in my head, I haven't hit a total dead-end.

"Oh…" I then paused, remembering where I was in the world, and I realized that meeting in person would be difficult, as we were on opposite sides of the planet. "I would love to, but I don't actually live in England," I explained. "I live in America. Is it possible you could mail me the information if I give you my address?"

"I would be glad to," Caroline said happily. After she politely asked for my address, and I gave it to her, she asked, "Is there a specific Doctor, or Doctors, you'd like to research?"

I thought about it for a minute. There was at least one Doctor I was more interested in learning about—that being number 11 in the tweed jacket and bow tie—but I figured that if I researched all of them, they would give me a better understanding of who he was and whether my theory that these men were actually the same person from different times was true.

"Um…not really," I answered. "Would all of them be okay?"

"All of them?" she asked, puzzled and shocked. "Are you sure?" She asked that as if there was a lot more information than I was expecting, and she was warning me that that was the case, but I didn't care. I needed to know everything about this guy…or guys.

"Yes," I said confidently. "I…uh…" I then paused, struggling to come up with a believable explanation, but also one that didn't make her think of me as a kook. "I'm very interested in learning about this guy's history, seeing as I'm very into history as well." Wow, Sydney, I shook my head at myself incredulously. That's the best excuse you can come up with? "Plus, you said you wanted everything off your hands, correct?" I added to make up for my lame excuse.

"Yes, that is correct," Caroline answered, although I wasn't sure if it was in a tone that suggested I was just as crazy as her late husband. "Very well. I'll have everything I can find on the Doctor sent to you within the week, if I can."

"I appreciate that very much," I thanked her from the bottoms of my hearts. Of course, she had no idea how much this meant to me, seeing that she wasn't obviously aware of my secret. "Again, I'm sorry about your husband."

"Thank you, Sydney," Caroline answered in a weary tone. "Goodbye."

"Bye," I replied before hanging up.

I then slapped myself against my forehead with my phone angrily. Good going, doofus, I chastised myself, you just made her upset, having to relive all those memories of her husband's death. Now there's no doubt she'll tell all her friends what a complete idiot you are. You may have two hearts, but you have zero brains, especially in the Sympathy Division.

If I was honest with myself, I probably deserved it, but it was worth getting all that information on someone who may or may not be blood. Once I got all that information, I was going to be one step closer to finding out what and who I was, which excited and terrified me at the same time. I was excited to finally find out my true origins after countless years of not knowing, but I was terrified of what I might find out about my ancestry. If it was true that I came from a long line of the most malevolent beings in the universe, I dreaded to find out what sorts of things the Time Lords were responsible for in the past; who knows, maybe my ancestors were a part of all of those things too, and I may be forced to continue that legacy as the 'next' Time Lord (Lady). I seriously hoped that wasn't the case, depending on what I found out.

An abrupt knock at the bathroom door startled me from my thoughts. "Syd? You in there?" Hazel asked in a concerned tone.

I got up and opened the door. "Yeah, I'm fine. I was just on a phone call from someone in England. I was asking about a website I had discovered not too long ago. You won't believe what I found on there."

"Yeah, I saw the site on my computer," Hazel nodded. "Is everything alright? From the website, it looked like you were looking up a doctor."

I shook my head. "Not just any doctor. I think I may have found some clues about my father. My bio-father."

"Really?" Hazel said, genuinely shocked. "You'll have to show me later."

"Why wait?" I asked, puzzled. "Everything's still up on your computer."

"Because I'm hungry," Hazel replied, and I swore I heard her stomach rumble just then.

"Okay," I nodded. As anxious as I was to show her what I found, filling an empty stomach was more important. "Me too, actually," I said, suddenly feeling my own stomach rumble. "You got any fruit?"

"Yeah, we have a whole fruit bowl in the kitchen," Hazel said as I followed her downstairs.

As we past the living room, I saw the news playing on TV that mentioned a break-in at somebody's house in Shawnee, which was a town not far from where we lived. Since it didn't sound as exciting to me (if an alien broke into the house, I would've been more interested), I went straight to the kitchen toward the fruit bowl.

When I entered the kitchen, Hazel's brother Harrison (or Harry for short) was there, waiting by the toaster.

"You guys are up early," He said, glaring at Hazel as if she was a criminal, possibly like the one mentioned in the news.

"What's it to you?" Hazel replied in a careless tone. "We're just getting food."

"I know," her brother replied sheepishly, "It's just…on weekends, you usually don't come down this early. Oh, hey, Syd—I mean, Sydney." He regarded me as if seeing me for the first time.

Suddenly remembering what Hazel said about her brother having slight affections for me, but I had no interest in him whatsoever, I just replied with an apathetic "Hi." I then grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and washed it in the sink.

"How…uh…how are you?" Harry asked awkwardly, but I paid no attention to him, as I was washing my apple before eating it.

"Fine," I answered in the exact same way as when I said 'hi' before, before taking a bite, only to realize that the apple tasted off. I immediately spit it back out and glanced down at the fruit, and after closer inspection I realized that I had grabbed a pear instead, which was the one fruit in the universe that I deeply hated. "Ugh," I groaned before I threw the pear in the trash and grabbed a banana instead, which was my absolute favorite fruit.

"You don't like pears?" Harry said in an incredulous tone.

"No," I answered as I took a bite from my banana. "They're disgusting. Who in their right mind would want to eat those?"

"I do," Hazel's brother said a bit disappointedly. "They're my favorite fruits."

"Oh," I said with a shrug. "Well, sorry to disappoint, but they're not my favorites. I hate them. I like bananas more."

"Really?" Harry said with a smile. "Bananas are my favorites too!"

"I thought you said pears were," I said with a raised eyebrow.

Harry paused. "Uh…they're my second favorite fruits; bananas are my top favorite fruits. So are you!" He then paused. "I mean, you love bananas too; we have that in common. We should eat a banana together."

I almost choked on the piece of banana I was eating. 'We should eat a banana together,' as in, we take turns eating from the same banana? Yeesh! No thanks! I thought in disgust. It was now obvious that he fancied me, but I wasn't going to feel the same way about him anytime soon…if at all.

"Uh…I think I'll stick with my own banana, thank you very much," I said before shaking my head incredulously and backing away from him awkwardly.

"Hey, Syd, you might want to see this!" Hazel cried from the living room. "They're talking about what happened yesterday at the arcade, and we're on camera!"

"What?!" I exclaimed as I threw my banana peel in the trash and joined her in front of the TV. A small part of me thanked Hazel for the distraction away from her socially awkward brother.

Sure enough, we were caught on camera yesterday. "Yowzah, that is us!" I said in shock. The news was showing archive footage of a moment during our Laser Tag game when Hazel was seconds away from being killed by the Sontaran. On the CCTV, the Sontaran was seen standing over Hazel with its gun trained on her. There wasn't any audio, but I could tell this was the moment when it was declaring to Hazel that she was not the so-called 'Time Lord female' it was looking for and was demanding her to tell it where she—I—was. Off to the side, at the bottom right corner of the screen, I saw myself—or rather my back—hiding behind the wall, about to whack the Sontaran on the back of the neck, therefore saving Hazel's life.

While the footage was still rolling, the newscaster was talking about how terrifying the situation seemed to be (you have no idea, I thought in my head as a response), and how heroic "the mystery girl" (she being me) was when she had saved "the other girl" (Hazel) from certain death. This comment brought a smile to my face and an overwhelming sense of pride wash over me, but it didn't bring a smile to Hazel's face.

"Oh, you get to be 'the mystery girl' and I get 'the other girl,'" she said disapprovingly, which almost made me fail fighting back a snort. I only shrugged.

"Whoa!" Hazel's brother exclaimed in shock when the footage showed me knock the Sontaran out with my laser gun, "you sure knocked the sense out of that guy. That armor looked impossible to smash through. How did you manage that?"

"I don't know," I replied, still in shock from the footage, and the disbelief that I never thought there'd be security cameras everywhere in the arena. Then again, of course there would be; the employees had to make sure the players weren't breaking any rules during the game, right?

"Just be thankful you still have a sister, dimwit," Hazel pointed out. "I'd be dead if it weren't for Syd." That was true. If I hadn't whacked the Sontaran out when I did, there would've been a high chance she wouldn't have survived.

Just then, the newscaster showed pictures of two people I recognized from that day—Brian and Cyrus—and announced the unfortunate fact that they didn't make it out of there alive. Thankfully, they hadn't mentioned Sam as another casualty, but regardless, a massive wave of guilt washed over me in that moment, almost stopping both hearts cold.

"Crap, they did die," Hazel said in shock. "That's so sad."

"Yeah…" I nodded, feeling a lump in my throat and my eyes watering with tears. "I could've saved them."

"You couldn't have known," Hazel shook her head in disbelief that I was responsible for their deaths.

"No," I shook my own head, "but I should've paid more attention." I then got up and ran back upstairs to Hazel's room in tears, my guilt reaching its peak.

"Syd!" Hazel cried as she chased after me.

"Wait, guys, there's more!" I heard her brother call from downstairs. "They're now talking about two people that showed up after you guys left; a woman with curly hair and a man in a bow—" I didn't get to hear the rest of what he was saying, as I had shut Hazel's door behind me and collapsed on the floor next to her bed and cried.

Two seconds later, Hazel came in and closed the door behind her, out of breath from running up the stairs after me. "Syd, what's wrong?" she asked as she sat down on the floor next to me.

"I'm sorry, Haze," I sobbed. "You were almost killed because of me. I was stupid to make you stay put. I should've told you to run." Suddenly thinking of Brian and Cyrus, I muttered, "I should've told them to run."

"Syd, listen to me!" Hazel shook her head. "It wasn't your fault."

"It was," I insisted. "If I'd told them to run… If I'd acted as Cyrus's shield…"

"Then you would've been killed…" Hazel finished my sentence. "Or at the very least, you would've 'regenerated.'"

"Exactly!" I exclaimed. "Don't you see? The guy was after me, not you…or Brian, or Cyrus, or Sam. If he'd captured me, he would've let the rest of you go; he would've let you live. If I'd turned myself in to him, Brian and Cyrus would still be alive." Even if the Sontaran refused to leave any survivors, I would've convinced it to change its mind in the most peaceful manner possible so that everything would be fair for everyone; the Sontaran could've escaped with his prize (the prize being me), and everyone else could've escaped with their lives.

Hazel shook her head. "No, Syd, you can't think like that. Who knows what he would've done to you otherwise. You had no idea that was going to happen; none of us had any idea." She then placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. "I know you feel guilty about their deaths…and frankly, so do I. I could've done something to stop him from killing them, but I was too scared. I guess we're both to blame here, but we can't let this keep us from moving on. Cyrus and Brian's death was an accident, but we can't do anything to fix it; the only thing we can do is move on from it."

She was right. Nothing and no one could bring Brian and Cyrus back, but we could avenge their deaths by moving on with our own lives. I figured, even in death, Brian and Cyrus would've wanted everyone to do that anyway.

"You're right," I said after a few minutes of silence. "Thanks, Haze."

"No way I'm gonna let you carry this guilt alone," Hazel declared. "That's what friends are for, right?"

I shook my head in slight disagreement. "Haze, you don't have to do that; not when you had absolutely nothing to do with it."

"I don't care," she argued. "If you go down, I go down with you; it's what friends do. It's already decided, and there's no way you're gonna change my mind."

I sighed. She was serious! No matter what faults I made, Hazel would take the blame too, even when she had no hand in it. No non-human, like me, deserved a friend like her.

I smiled. "You're the greatest friend ever, Haze."

She smiled back. "As are you…Time Lady." We both laughed. It was nice to know she still accepted me as her friend, whether I was human or not. "Anyway, did you want to show me what you found about your father?" she asked, glancing up at her computer, which had the webpage still up and running; although, there was something different about it…something missing.

"Yeah." Wiping my eyes dry, I went back over to the computer, and Hazel pulled up another chair next to me. When I looked at the webpage closely, I noticed that the photo of the leather jacket guy had disappeared, leaving a massive space between the heading and description paragraph. I frowned, thinking this was odd, as we were only away from the computer for five minutes, six at most.

"'Have you seen the Doctor…'" Hazel read the heading aloud. She paused another thirty seconds, reading the description silently. After she finished reading the paragraph, she frowned. "That's a little creepy. It sounds like this guy could be dangerous. According to this, he brings disaster and death wherever he goes."

I nodded. "Yeah, I thought it was creepy too, even mad. But when I looked through these photos, I thought differently. You'll see the men seem to be running either to or from danger. Check these out." I clicked on the tab to the gallery and clicked on the '11' folder, but I found all the photos missing. I frowned again. "What the heck? Where did the photos go? They were all right here five minutes ago." I clicked on the '10' folder, only to find those photos gone as well. "Seriously? They were literally here not five minutes ago! What happened to them?"

"Maybe they got deleted somehow," Hazel shrugged.

"But why?" I sighed. "Why would someone do that? And who?" I clicked through more folders, but it seemed that every single image of this mysterious Doctor had been purposefully removed from the website; more than that, they seemed to have been removed from the entire Internet. I groaned. "I'm not crazy; they were all right here. There were tons of photos, all of different men, but they all went by the same title of 'the Doctor,' and one of them…" I paused, feeling indecisive at first to tell her about my dream, but I ultimately decided to tell her anyway. "I saw him in my dream last night; it was the eleventh one. He wore a tweed jacket and bow tie, and in some photos he was seen with a curly-haired woman, the same woman I told you about yesterday. I'd show you what they looked like, but…" I gestured to the almost blank webpage, showing proof that I had nothing to show.

"It's okay," Hazel assured me. "Maybe we can find him in another website."

I sighed, shaking my head. "I doubt we will. Those might be deleted too. Question is, who is deleting them, and why?" I then realized something. "Actually, it doesn't matter. Caroline said she'd mail me everything her late husband had of the Doctor. I bet most of what they had printed in boxes was also in the website; in which case, we'll see all the photos once they get shipped to my house."

Of course, when something got accidentally (or purposefully) deleted, it was important to have a backup copy elsewhere, right?

"Great," Hazel smiled. "I'd love to see them when they arrive. Maybe we'll find out who you really are and where you really come from together."

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "My thoughts exactly!"

I couldn't wait until I got everything from Caroline Finch. Although, I had to wait a whole week, possibly longer, but I had preferred to have them by that night so I could spend the time researching without my guardians finding out. I hated having to lie to them again, even if they did find out I'd told Hazel my big secret. Who knew what they'd say if they found out I was researching 'the Doctor,' which my guardians said was also my bio-dad's name. Thinking back on my dream, I wasn't sure what my bio-dad meant when he said he was giving me up to protect me from himself, but I figured this information from Clive's website (and more) would help me understand everything; maybe they'll include the possible 'danger' my bio-dad was running to or from in the photos.

It wasn't until a week and a half later that I finally got the information on the Doctor shipped to my house, and of course, I kept everything from my guardians like I planned. Luckily, they weren't the type of parents that would be nosy and insist on knowing absolutely everything that their children—adopted or not—did while they were or weren't in their room, so I was confident that they wouldn't discover this stuff, which I had kept hidden under my bed.

For two nights straight, I researched solely on this mysterious Doctor—especially the Eleventh Doctor—and the more I researched, the surer I felt that he was my biological father. I even started developing the theory that he was a Time Lord too, simply because I had noticed in other photos of the other men that their mannerisms were almost the exact same; they were always running. These other men had to be his past selves from past regenerations.

As promised, I invited Hazel over to share with her what I had discovered, and, as expected, she was shocked.

"Wow, there is a lot of information on this guy…" she said as she looked through the pictures of the Doctor's past selves. "And you think all these men are actually just one person? More than that, you think this guy is your father?"

I nodded. "Yeah, he must be. Clive's wife said so, I mean about the 'men actually being one person' thing. In her letter she sent with this stuff, she said her husband was obsessed with this guy, this 'Doctor.' She even said her husband had spent his whole life, even after they married, researching everything to do with 'the Doctor' and was looking for ways to find him and meet him in person, but it never happened because he was killed by one of those shop-window dummies in his town when they came to life back in 2005. Needless to say, that was the worst night of his wife's life, same for her kids."

Hazel nodded in understanding. "Yeah, I bet. But how does she know—I mean, how did her husband know—these guys are actually the same person?"

"I'm honestly not sure," I shrugged. "Clive's wife just said he noticed that these other guys used the same title of 'the Doctor,' which, to be honest, doesn't really prove anything."

"True," Hazel nodded in agreement. "Just because they all share the same title doesn't mean they're the same person."

"Exactly," I confirmed. "But then I started thinking, 'what if they actually are the same person?' In other words, 'what if they're just like me?' Like, what if they can regenerate, and these other guys are his past selves?"

Hazel frowned uncertainly. "I don't know, Syd. This all sounds like wishful thinking to me."

I sighed. "It probably is, but maybe it isn't. My guardians told me my bio-father went by the same title. And, get this!" I found an image of the Eleventh Doctor and showed it to her. "This guy right here, he looks exactly like the guy that was caught in that footage from the Laser Tag arena last week. The floppy haircut, the cone-shaped face, the tweed jacket, the bow tie…it's all the same. Trust me, I've seen the footage a million times after someone had reposted it online. I could show you."

I remembered how surprised I was when I saw the footage. A part of me even regretted leaving the arcade when we did. I could've met the Doctor if we'd stayed, but Hazel was injured, and of course, her health and safety was more important at the time. Stupid Sontaran, I thought angrily.

"No, it's okay," Hazel declined my offer. "I believe you. I've seen it too…but not a million times."

"My guardians also mentioned that my bio-dad wore this exact same clothing," I added. "Although, I didn't show them this picture; they actually don't know I have all this stuff."

"Why haven't you told them?" she asked curiously.

I frowned. "Are you kidding? They'd flip out if they'd found out I've been researching my bio-parents. They wouldn't approve of any of this. They'd probably burn all this stuff if they found it." I then sighed. "I can't lie to them…not again. I've broken their promise about keeping my non-humanness a secret already; if they'd found out I've been researching my bio-parents behind their backs…" I felt a shudder run down my spine in that moment. "I can't have them take all this stuff away. All this…this is the only thing I have of my bio-parents; the only thing I have of finding them, of knowing who and what I am. I need to know what I am, or I'm…I'm nothing."

Hazel shook her head in disagreement. "You're not nothing. You're a freaking Time Lady—a Lady of Time, whatever that is…with two hearts, I might add. That sounds like a pretty badass title, even more so than 'Doctor,' don't you think?"

I smiled. "Yeah." I then paused, realizing something. "Speaking of 'Time Lords,' I think I understand why we're called that. Check this out." I showed a pic of the Doctor in the leather jacket—the one which was labeled '09'—taken in a large crowd, watching a man and a woman dressed in pink riding in a long black limousine. "This was obviously taken just seconds before President JFK's assassination in 1963, but look there…" I pointed to the Doctor's circled face. "There he is, one of 'the Doctor's' past selves. Take a good, long look at his face and clothing." I gave Hazel a few seconds to memorize the face, and after that time was spent, I said, "Okay, and now check this out." I showed another pic of the same man taken from an older time, this time pictured with a couple that appeared to be dressed in attire from the early 1900s.

"Whoa…" Hazel said, her eyes bulging in shock.

I nodded. "Yeah, see? It's the same guy; the exact same guy."

"How is that possible?" she asked. "Are they, like, related, or something, like father and son?"

I shook my head. "No, it's the same person; you can tell by the clothing. And if you look closely at his face…he hasn't aged a day."

"How can he be in two different times that are decades apart and not age?" she asked with a puzzled frown.

"I think…" I then paused, thinking Hazel would think this statement to be ridiculous. When I first thought of the theory the previous night, even I thought it was preposterous, but if it was true this guy wasn't human, like me, then maybe it was possible. "I think he's a time-traveler," I admitted my theory anyway.

"What?" Hazel laughed, which wasn't surprising to me at all. "A time-traveler? Are you kidding? That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard!"

I sighed, shaking my head. "I wish I was, but I'm not. One more thing…" This time, I showed an image of one of the Doctors standing outside a familiar blue box. "You recognize that box?"

She nodded. "Yeah, it's the same one from last week."

I nodded as well. "Uh-huh, and check this out." I showed several other photos of different Doctors with the same blue box in the background. "It's in all of these pics from totally different times. You realize what that means, right?"

"Don't tell me that blue box is a time-machine," Hazel scoffed in disbelief.

I nodded. "That's exactly what I'm telling you. It makes sense! How else would it appear in all these times, again, not showing a single sign of aging?"

Hazel shook her head doubtfully. "I don't know, Syd. I mean, this is all quite fascinating, but…it can't be real. From what you told me about that lady's husband, he sounded like a real whack-job—a kook. Who's to say all these articles were just fanfictions that were written by twelve-year-old kids, and this alien 'Doctor' was their main protagonist? I'll admit, I'll give them props for their creativity."

I shook my head in disagreement. "I don't think this is fanfiction; this has to be real. Come on, Haze, you saw the box in the parking lot; you said it's never been there before until that day. As big as it was, how can one man lift that thing with his own two hands?"

"He had help?" Hazel shrugged. "There was a woman with him. They must've lifted the thing together."

"Yes, but why would they waste time lifting the box, taking it there, and then running into the arcade to handle the Sontaran?" I pointed out. "I'm telling you, that box isn't an ordinary box. It's got to be alien; or rather, Time Lord."

"So…what, Time Lords control Time, or something?" Hazel asked, puzzled.

I shook my head. "I don't think they 'control' it, per se; more like they keep Time in order. Like, they travel to different times and places and make sure nothing tries to change what's supposed to happen there. You know, like the Apollo 11 Launch that happened on July 16, 1969, or the signing of the Declaration of Independence on August 7, 1776. They're in charge of making sure events like these are not changed in any way, or the world today would be much different. At least, that's what I think they do."

That's what we do, I corrected myself in my head. Thinking back on it, the idea sounded pretty cool, especially if I would possibly be doing something like this as a future career. I could become famous by simply saving an important event, such as the two I listed, from being changed; it just depended on whether or not I was witnessed doing it.

Hazel nodded. "Yeah, I get it." She then shrugged. "Well, if you ever see that blue box in our neighborhood, be sure to let me know so I know you're not crazy."

"I'm not crazy!" I insisted. I then sighed, admitting, "Granted, we didn't see it magically appear out of nowhere."

"Well, then I guess we'll just have to find out where it's going to 'magically appear' next and have our cameras ready," Hazel teased.

"I doubt it'll be that simple," I chuckled as well, shaking my head. "I have a feeling it won't just appear at your beck-and-call; it's much more complicated than that. More like we'll have to be at the right place at the right time."

Hazel shook her head disappointedly. "Well, I guess we missed our opportunity last time. Blame the Sultan for almost shooting my arm off."

I laughed. "Yeah. If the box does appear again, we'll be sure to stick around this time, no matter what danger we're in." Hazel laughed as well.

After my declaration, I felt more determined to find out the mystery of the blue box and the true identities of my bio-parents. Now, I wanted more than ever to find them…if ever.

A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!