A/N - Welcome everyone! I am finally living up to my username and writing a Doctor Who fanfic. In my other story I posted how I lost an interest in writing it and writing in general. Whilst I still have no want to write a Harry Potter fanfic, turns out that a Doctor Who fanfic is ok in my brain. I know roughly where this story is going unlike my previous stories where I winged it. The OC will likely become a Mary Sue, I'm trying not to, but things happen. Every so often I will be giving new adventures not in the series, but I'm not that great of a writer so they won't be happening that often. No idea about how often I will be updating the story, but I'll try to update multiple times a year, rather than like with Secret No one Knew which was maybe once a year if I was lucky. (I am terrible at making covers, so the cover is AI generated, if anyone can make something better I will immediately change the cover) If there is anything triggering (which I am trying to limit) I will write it in the notes either at the start of the story or at the end if it is story relevant to limit spoilers.
A woman stands looking at herself in the mirror. Green eyes look at shoulder length brown hair and considers getting a haircut, it is starting to become longer than what she liked, at least her glasses were a pretty purple colour. As her eyes lowered, she grimaced at her reflection, tugging at her shirt. 'Tomorrow,' she promised herself, for the millionth time. 'Tomorrow, I'll start eating better. Chocolate was just too tempting; but 120 kg was way too much,' she thought, recalling the time she'd bought a gym membership but never went. "Tomorrow... I'll do it tomorrow." With a resigned sigh, she turned away from the mirror and forced herself to focus, though how she could function at 6:30 in the morning both impressed and confused her. At least this time the high school had called her the night before so she could have her laptop ready in time to leave. Double checking that she had everything in her bag, she realised she forgot her hard drive. Normally she didn't bring it, but it was the last week of school for the term, often teachers would require her to play movies. She had Netflix and Binge but had decided that Disney was too expensive to add to her list of subscriptions, so she had 'found' movies online and had placed them on her hard drive.
Mira Faye Rivera was a young woman who was 27 years old. She had spent the last 3 years studying at her university to become a high school history teacher, and yet her anxiety towards committing to a school limited her to being a casual relief teacher. Some schools were nice, like Seaside Ridge High School, they would call the night before or even the week before. She liked those schools; it helped her stress less about going to the school. Most schools though would call at 6:30 in the morning, and she would argue with herself about whether or not to commit to working at the school for the day. Most of the time she lost her anxiety. Seaside Ridge was a haven for her. Getting called the night before meant less scrambling in the morning, fewer stomach knots. It gave her time to feel in control, even if most days, control felt like it was just out of reach.
As she picked up the hard drive, she saw the TARDIS sticker on the top. She smiled and after placing it in her laptop bag, headed to her study. Her study was cluttered with various random items, she could see a dozen stuffed toys sitting in a box, her yarn and crochet hooks sitting on her desk with an unfinished project, let's be honest, about 5 unfinished projects were littered throughout the room, some knitting and some crochet. Turning on her computer she scrolled through her folders until she found Doctor Who. She had an hour to spare until she had to leave, so decided to watch 'Hell Bent', it was one of her top 10 episodes of the show and she had watched it so many times that if she didn't finish the episode, it wouldn't be the end of the world.
45 minutes later Mira looked at the clock on her computer and cursed it was 7:15 and she only had 15 minutes to grab an Up-and-Go and her lunch before leaving. Whilst Seaside Ridge wouldn't start until 8:30, she needed to be at the school by 8 at the very latest. She had decided this 2 years ago when she started teaching so then she could read what the normal class teacher had left behind for the day so she could familiarise herself with the work, especially as she rarely if ever actually worked as a history teacher. She did mildly hate that she was never sent the work she was meant to teach the night before if she was contacted the night before, but she couldn't change that.
As she rushed around her house to finish the last few things, she didn't notice her computer screen glitching before showing a crack she would have been familiar with. Saying goodbye to her parents and brother, she quickly walked to her car, cursing slightly as she plugged her phone in to play music whilst she drove. She needed music to drive as without it she felt anxious, the car was too quiet and her thoughts too loud. Tapping through on her iPhone, she picked her Doctor Who playlist in the mood for more Doctor Who. Thankfully she had taught at Seaside Ridge before, so she knew where she was going without using her GPS. As she drove, she was grateful that she lived in Australia. Sunset Hollow was a beautiful town 2 hours south of Sydney, and whilst not as busy as Sydney, was busy enough for Mira. The Aboriginal people of the region had called it Budjaan, the 'land of many birds' and the town certainly lived up to that name. Mira could see dozens of cockatoos eating worms in her local park, rainbow lorikeets flying overhead whilst kookaburras sat on the electric wire. Smiling she started humming 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree'. After an uneventful 20 minutes she arrived at Seaside Ridge High School at 7.50.
"Thank God, support," Mira mumbled with relief as she checked her phone. Support was one of the better subjects to be teaching and she had taught the classes she saw on her day sheet multiple times before. Support was great as it was teaching students with varying disabilities and, what Mira liked the most, had a support teacher in the classroom with her that knew the students. This meant that she wasn't alone, and had someone who knew what the students needed, allowing her to help her students better. Going to the office she signed in, grabbed the classroom keys, and went to the staffroom to grab the work for the day. She greeted the teachers around her, feeling her social battery increasing. Being an extravert and a teacher worked well together, though her feelings on inadequacy would make her feel like every class was failure.
Her morning classes were stressful simply because two students had decided that having a verbal argument was a fun time, but thankfully the head teacher was able to come over and take the students out of the room to calm them down and resolve the argument. Before her last morning class ended, a student that she had taught across multiple subjects, came up to her.
"Miss Rivera, I have a present for you" the student shyly stated, holding a box up to Mira. "Oh, you didn't have to do that Sofia" Mira smiled at the student as she packed her bag to go to the staff room. Making sure that she packed her hard drive, she was right, their normal teacher had asked her to play Inside Out for the students. "Please take it Miss, it's the last class that I'll have with you for a while" Sofia pushed the box towards Mira. Finally grabbing the box, she opened it to find a bracelet with a sonic screwdriver on it and a circular pendant with Gallifreyan on it.
"Oh, it's beautiful Sofia, how much did you pay for it?" Mira was concerned that the bracelet cost over $50, if that was the case then she could not keep it or risk the Department of Education Code of Conduct. "It cost me $5 Miss, and that was only because of the bracelet, I made the rest myself" Sofia reassured her teacher. "You're a real artist, you know," Mira grinned, holding the bracelet up to admire. "I can't even finish one crochet project unless it's a present, let alone make something this pretty." Again, smiling at Sofia, Mira placed the box containing the bracelet in her bag. Shooing the student off so she could lock the door, as she walked back to the staff room, she and her support teacher talked about the lesson. Going to the desk she was using for the day; she took out the bracelet, hopefully it was as cheap as Sofia had stated it was, she placed it on her wrist.
The moment the bracelet clicked around her wrist; a blinding light exploded around her. Her head pounded, and the air felt charged with energy. Colours—white, orange, pink, purple—swirled behind her closed eyelids, until it all settled into a deep, glowing green. As the light behind her eyelids slowly started easing, she realised she could hear a humming sound. Opening her eyes trying to find the sound she froze in place. She looked at struts bending like vines with hexagon lights up and down the walls, but what caught her attention the most was a control panel in the centre of the room with a tube filled with glowing green tubes.
"No way... This can't be real. I'm dreaming. I've got to be dreaming," she whispered, backing up a few steps. She turned around slowly, taking in the control panel, the twisting struts, the alien glow. It was too vivid, too solid to be her imagination. But the TARDIS? She reached out, touching the coral-like structure. Cold. Real. "How is this even possible?"
"What the—how did you get in here?" A voice boomed behind her. Screaming, Mira jumped around to face the voice. As she turned, she realised that she was looking at the Doctor. Specifically, the 9th Doctor. "How did you get in my ship?" Glaring at Mira as she stood frozen staring at him, taking in the leather jacket, purple shirt and sonic screwdriver that he was aiming at her like it would do something. "I'm Mira Faye Rivera," she finally was able to blurt out, "I was teaching, a student gave me a bracelet and now suddenly I'm here. In a universe that is not my own." The Doctor stared hard at Mira as she squirmed in place. She hated people looking at her like how the Doctor was. "How exactly do you know this isn't your universe?" His tone was cautious, eyes narrowing. "Well for one, you exist. In mine you are a fictional character on a TV series that follows the adventures around your life." Watching as his gaze gets darker, she hurriedly continued, "We don't see everything, only certain adventures, and we don't even know your real name. Just a childhood nickname." Mumbling the last part to herself.
"You. Stay right there," the Doctor commanded, stepping forward with his sonic screwdriver held out like a weapon. "Now, explain. How do you know about my ship?" Mira swallowed, glancing nervously at the device in his hand. "I told you, you're a TV show in my universe. I—I've watched all of it. Most of it, anyway." The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "That's a new one. Care to tell me what else you 'know' about me?"
Freezing, Mira realised that most of her knowledge was in his future. She couldn't show him an episode of the show on her hard drive, if that even still worked, as she couldn't see Rose around her, which meant it was likely he hadn't met her yet. She combed through her memories, trying to remember anything that would assist in her plight. Inspiration pushed her to blurt out her only knowledge of his past, "I... uh... I know things. Like, um... you travelled with your granddaughter. Your first regeneration. And... your real name—well, we don't know it. You go by a nickname of Theta Sigma, one of your regenerations you wore a really long scarf and a celery on your lapel for some reason. And recently you had to make a choice, a horrible choice" The Doctor's eyes narrowed, his expression unreadable. "You shouldn't know that" he said, his voice low, but he wasn't angry—just deeply intrigued. "You need to know that you are forgiven, completely, because of you, trillions of lives were saved because you had to make a choice that is haunting you."
Clearing his throat, the Doctor stopped looking at Mira and headed towards the TARDIS rotor. Fiddling with the controls he started talking to Mira, "So you don't fully know how you got here other than the bracelet? I need to scan you to make sure that everything is fine" Agreeing to his suggestion, they started heading to the medical bay, with Mira's head on a swivel taking in everything she had seen in the show and the new corridors that the show had never focused on. Sitting on the bed in the corner of the room, Mira sat still as the Doctor ran a series of test. "You should probably cut down on all the food, it would be better for your health if you ate less."
"Yeah, I know, I've been trying, but I find sticking to a diet difficult, forming habits is difficult." Nodding his head, the Doctor continued with his tests. "Other than void stuff covering your body, and things you obviously know, you seem perfectly normal, perfectly human."
"Well good to know I'm not in a fanfiction where I suddenly become an alien, or a Time Lady or something ridiculous like that. What year is it? I came from the 26th of September 2024, I was preparing for Halloween."
"It's the 4th of March 2005, I found some readings coming from a department store in Central London that are concerning to me." Mira bit her lip, suddenly aware of the fine line she was walking. What if saying too much changed something? What if knowing his future screwed up this reality? Her mind raced—what would be safe to say? Looking at her face, he could tell that she knew something from what he said, "I take it that's an episode of your show?" The Doctor's eyes twinkled with curiosity as he turned to her. "Here's the deal: follow my rules, and you'll survive. 1, don't run off, 2, unless it is to save someone, only give me hints, I don't want you to change the timeline too much."
'This is insane. I'm inside my favourite TV show, but... what happens now? Do I get back? Do I even want to go back?' The thought surprised her, but as she looked around the TARDIS, a slow excitement bubbled up beneath the anxiety. With a small smile, she followed the Doctor outside the doors of the TARDIS, ready for 'Rose'.
A/N - There we go ~ The start of Mira's journey. I have a poll on my profile about the story, be warned, it is a spoiler for both Doctor Who and this fanfic. Please let me know what you guys think, hopefully it wasn't too confusing or boring.