doctor who AU
Doctor Who thang because I’m re watching and forgot how incredibly in love I was with David tennant.
Okay so if you’ve watched doctor Who then…
trina= rose
Marvin= the doctor
He sighed before rolling over onto his back.
The bed was cold and lonely.
Like always.
The dull headache sent cracks through his skull.
It always did.
He sat up, knees almost buckling as he stood up with the rigour he used to and, with the assistance of the cane he kept by the bed, he slowly hobbled along the small, carpeted corridor.
There was an off smell.
He hadn’t bought any food in well over a month and hadn’t bothered to clean out the fridge. What was the point?
He was about to die soon.
Soon. Very soon. He could tell.
The bathroom tiles were cool on the soles of his feet, and he stared at his reflection in the mirror.
The stranger staring back was much older than a twenty-five-year-old man.
He opened the cabinet, breaking the memory, and picked out the serums and creams, moisturising his skin with detached aggression, and finally removed the silken scarf that protected his hair while he slept.
He had put a lot of effort into pretending he was fine.
He also put a lot of effort into combing back his hair every morning, creating the illusion of full, voluminous locks that he had already lost.
He quickly got changed into a shirt and high waisted trousers, and then left, no longer relying on the cane.
It was difficult, but practice made him perfect at, well, pretty much everything when it came to pretending, he wasn’t dying.
He swanned around, pretty, and young.
But smart.
Incredibly so.
He opened the fridge freezer in the tiny front room, removing two of the small tubes, and slowly shuffled across the rough beige carpet separating the two rooms, knocking lightly on the door across the hall.
Low creaks were heard on the other side of the door.
“Hi ma’am.”
His voice was raspy, and he coughed, trying to clear his throat.
“What is it with yer lot calling me ma’am. Call me Siân deary.” The older woman said. Her welsh accent made him smile slightly. Smiles were hard to come by now, “yer looking good today dear.”
“Yer lot?” the boy mimicked with a smile. Because that’s all he is.
A boy.
“you Americans.”
He followed her into the flat. Hers was a bright pink, comforting and homely.
She watched as the boy pulled up his shirt a little and the trousers down, before shaking her head sadly.
“So, love, told yer mother yet?” she asked, peeling apart the plastic keeping the syringe sterile. She waited as the boy situated himself, bending slightly over the counter.
The boy let out a callous laugh, “my mother’s dead, the selfish bitch.”
“Ay—” Siân exclaimed, smacking the back of his head lightly, “-don’t speak ill of yer mother!” She gently inserted the syringe into the first of the two bottles.
This was their little routine, the boy having no one else in his life and his neighbour being sweet enough to help him out.
“Yer really are looking good today.” she pointed out quietly.
He groaned a little in pain as the second injection punctured the tender skin. “I have the awful feeling of ineffability.”
“What?” she cooed.
The boy smiled, pulling up his trousers and turned to face her as she disposed of the needles for that day. “it’s soon Siân. I can feel it and there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Come now.” She smiled, “yer a smart boy. Very smart. Something or someone is coming to save you.” she followed him out of the door, “I can feel it.”
The boy almost laughed, but he managed to keep the feeling of dread from bubbling up, “I hate people like you.” He said, a playful smile teasing the corners of his lips.
A fake look of aghast was cast across her face, “yes, well lots of English have it out for the welsh.”
“No, I didn’t mean welsh, I meant optimists.”
Siân shrugged, “I’ll whack a kettle on love, come join me.”
A heavy feeling spread through his body. This had been happening much more often recently, “later.”
He opened the door to his flat, and almost immediately collapsed into bed.
But not before he saw the figure in the corner.
“Here already?” he asked the shadow, “I thought I had a little longer.” He sat up, “I mean, I never really believed in the personification of death until I actually got sick. Honestly, I thought you’d be some big dark, hooded guy with a huge scythe or something able to slice me in two…”
“What!?” the man in the corner exclaimed.
“I mean, you’re a short… a short… short stick, you’re skinny as hell and basically four foot. And now you’re here to take me to your—”
“What!?”
“Well, blimey, I mean you remember the spaceships over London on Christmas, my neighbours daughter was killed in that cybermen attack, and now I see you and I think, you did all of that? You’re so… tiny!?”
“What!?”
“Fine, death, take me. I’m ready, my heads held high. Take me.”
The words were melodramatic, almost laced with sarcasm as the boy spoke, although a certain meloncholiness strung through them let the shadowed figure know there were some traces of truth in them.
He stared at the boy in his bed and a rather peculiar expression struck his face, “I’m the doctor.” He managed to splutter out. “And who are you?”
“Huh? The What?” The boy exclaimed, his head cocking at a drastic angle.
“The doctor.”
“The doctor? You cannot be called the doctor. I’m a doctor and I don’t go around calling myself ‘the doctor’. That’s a real douchey move.” The man, who called himself the doctor began to splutter a little bit, “I’m sorry, but what the hell are you doing in my house, and how the hell did you manage to fit that bloody thing in it?”
The boy on the bed gestured to the large blue police box in the corner of the room that seemed much larger than the hole in his doorframe.
“I’m the doctor.” He manage to splutter out, “and, well, that’s the Tardis.” He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“And!?”
“I… um… I’m here to stop that I guess.” The doctor said, drawing back the boy’s curtains to reveal the huge boiling sky, bright red and flushed as three more suns bubbled and broiled in the air.
The boy stood up, hand reaching for the glass, but pulled it away as it scorched his fingertips, “there are too many suns.” He whispered to himself, “and yet it’s only slightly hotter than usual.”
A smirk painted the doctors lips
“That cannot be right…” he whispered, trailing off.
The doctor smiled, “you’re smart, remind me of Tri—of an old friend.” Suddenly he turned into a blur, “so the earth’s in the same position, but now there are three more suns, three more stars in the orbit, which begs the question—”
“How are we not boiling alive, and how is there enough energy generated to either create three new stars, or move them.” the boy finished, smiling cockily at the doctor, “you’re not the only doctor in the room.”
“Exactly.” Suddenly he turned and ran, the boy, knowing nothing, deciding to follow, his mind full of exacerbated ideas, “So I just need to figure out, how the hell three new suns magically appeared in the sky. Not too difficult for a… what’s the day?” He stopped abruptly, the boy almost falling into him.
“Sunday.” He finished.
“a Sunday? Oh, I never land on a Sunday, or Tuesdays, or Thursday afternoons, they’re horribly boring. Except this Sunday I suppose.” The doctor added to himself.
He turned and fled, pushing open the door to the outside world.
It was the striking heat that hit the boy first, the intense flash that made him stumble, trip on the rough doorframe. He stopped; hand outstretched to block the sky as he looked out at the horizon.
“I don’t—”
“So, three suns, three stars, three. What’s so important about the number three—” he spun around, “you—” he pointed at the boy, “what’s so important about three?”
“Three?” the boy started to flounder and babble almost to himself, “smallest odd prime, only prime that precedes a square number, second triangle number, first Fermat prime, first Mersenne prime, the symbol behind James Churchward’s lost continent he called ‘Mu’ otherwise known as ‘Atlantis’, approximation of Pi—”
“The Yerkes spectral classification scheme!” The doctor exclaimed, clapping excitedly, turning, and running, “you’re very good you know!” he yelled over his shoulder.
“Where are you going?” the boy called after him.
The doctor turned, running backwards, “To save the world! Coming?”
He didn’t need to be asked twice, the lonely dying boy ran, his lungs aching almost instantly, praying for him to stop, but he couldn’t, sweat creasing over his brow.
“what’s Yerkes… spectral classification… spectrum?” he asked, stopping as the Doctor paused outside of a giant window, televisions stacked high. From his pocket he produced a small screwdriver shaped object, “what’s that?”
“it’s a scheme not a spectrum and it’s a classification system that bases stars on special characteristics. The third star in the classification is a giant star… AH HAH!” he exclaimed as suddenly a high-pitched whirring sound became audible, “sonic screwdriver!”
“Sonic screwdriver?” the lonely boy repeated before his face lit up with a bewondered gasp, “so not actually a screwdriver at all? A sonic device with the capability to disrupt or rewrite any energy in the form of a screwdriver!” he deduced, watching as all the televisions suddenly turned on.
The doctor stopped, turning to him, “what did you say you got a doctorate in?” he asked.
“Oh, I didn’t—” before he had a chance to explain, the screens all turned to the same image, “what the hell is that!?” he shrieked.
The doctor looked up from fiddling with his sonic screwdriver and a wide smile came over his face, “that, dear boy, is the reason you have three more stars in your sky.”
The boy shivered. On the television screen stood a static video of a creature the boy had never seen and could never describe. A short squat figure with a smile that stretched out like sharks teeth. In fact, the only way the boy could describe it was a cacophony of animals that didn’t belong together, rolled into one.
The worst and most destructive of all being the general humanly form it would flicker into for moments at a time.
“What is it?” The boy whispered to the time lord stood next to him.
The doctor looked very upset for the briefest second, “what is he?” he corrected, “he is something I haven’t seen in a while.”
The boy suddenly turned a startling white and turned his back to the doctor, “one moment.” He said, bending over. A thick noise swallowed the alley as he vomited the viscous liquid onto the floor.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have come with me?” the doctor said, leaning over so his back was pressed to the window, standing with his arms crossed coolly over his chest, “if you’re that squeamish I mean.”
“Dick.” The boy muttered between throwing up what little was in his system, “I’m dying.”
The doctor snickered to himself, “what was it, huge hangover?”
The boy’s stone expression almost froze the doctor to the core as he looked up, “I’m dying.” He repeated slowly as though it were obvious, “this is how I react to the treatment.” He spat vile liquid from his mouth.
“Oh.” A sheepish smile drifted onto the madman’s face, “I hope it’s not too bad.”
“it’s the fucking best.” The boy grumbled sarcastically under his breath.
“Oh?”
“No, it’s not bad.” He lied through gritted teeth, “got years ahead of me.”
A cheap wind ran through the alley, a tiny piece of Eden in hell itself. The boy inhaled the breeze, appreciating the slightest chill it brought.
“You never answered my question.” The boy pointed out, standing upright again, “what is it… he?”
The doctor cocked his head, and suddenly he turned on his heels and fled, “sarhgins.” He yelled over his shoulder, “foot soldiers able to take the form of their opponents greatest fear. They have a very low intelligence”
“But if they’re foot soldiers, then who are they working for?” the boy asked, running after the doctor.
The doctor hummed in response, “precisely.” He stopped, turning to look at the boy, “exactly like Trina.”
“Trina?”
He ran again, darting around the corner and into the marketplace, “a friend.”
“How did they make three giant stars appear?” the boy asked, huffing loudly as he became out of breath.
“well- “the doctor responded, “-that must be the work of whoever is their leader, which means we’re looking at—”
Suddenly a loud explosion tore through the bustling air, the marketplace suddenly blown to smithereens as the pair of them ducked under a fabric covered stall.
“what’s going on!?” the boy yelled.
The doctor cocked his head, directing his ears towards the boy, “what?” he screamed back.
“What?” the boy shouted, “I can’t hear you!”
“I can’t— I can’t hear you” the doctor huffed loudly, pointing the sonic screwdriver at the boys ears. There was an agonising high-pitched squeal for a second, and suddenly his hearing was back.
The doctor took the boy’s face with both of his hands, forcing their eyes to stay in contact as he spoke very fast and very calm, “whatever you do, do not look at them. they will paralyse you with fear, you cannot look at them, understand?” The boy nodded, eyes glazed over as he tried to keep the blush from his face, “your face, it’s very soft.” He suddenly exclaimed, “Is my face soft? Nice?” he asked innocently.
The boy’s eyes suddenly became as large as the saucers flying through the sky, “Um…”
“I haven’t seen it yet, new generation and all.”
“What?”
“And you didn’t have a mirror…” The doctor huffed, gesturing wildly at his face, “New face, is it nice?”
The boy suddenly became nervous all of a sudden. “It’s… it’s sharp in a good way, the nose is sculpted nicely, your eyes are really deep and dark and… and I’d say you’re handsome but not in a classic way, more like in a dad way. Like Henry Cavill, or… or David Tennant--”
“Huh. Not sure who they are” The doctor looked up as though in thought, “huh.” He began to crawl away before thinking better of it and crawling back, “do I have hair?” he asked.
The boy cocked his head, “yes.” He replied slowly, wondering how this madman didn’t know if he had hair or not, “it’s slightly curly, dark brown.”
“Ooh good. I do like curly hair, oh and how old would you say I look?”
“Er mid-forties, why?”
“Not too bad for a nine-hundred-year-old time lord.”
Suddenly the doctor disappeared around the corner leaving the boy with a distressed look on his face.
He scrambled back around the booth until he was seated next to the boy, “you are going to have to do exactly what I say,” he whispered, “do you trust me?”
“No! I just met you!” The boy exclaimed, suddenly wincing as the Doctor shushed him.
“I’m a doctor!” he protested.
“Well, no, of course I don’t bloody trust doctors, I’m dying for Satan’s sake.” The boy hissed, enough sarcasm in his words to make a shirt stand on its own.
The doctor gasped loudly, “well I’m not like any crappy doctor you’ve ever met.”
“Yes, I know. you call yourself, ‘the doctor’. What’s your real name, what kind of doctor are you? Are you the medical kind that’s actually useful, or a philosophy professor, because I’m sorry, but I don’t want some crusty old philosophy doctor trying to tell me the worlds about to end and I have to choose between a train hitting a man with the cure to cancer or seven babies or something!”
“What!?” the doctor hissed, the most bewildered expression on his face.
“What!?” the boy hissed back, “It’s a good question!”
The doctor suddenly grabbed the boy’s hand, pulling him behind him as they ran through the packed market stalls, dodging under tables as beams of light flew past them. “I’ve got several, three to be precise—” he explained as they paused for breath beneath a veiled curtain entrance to a dressing room. “Astrology, biomechanical physics and—”
“Ha! Well, I have four so therefore I should be the one referred to as ‘the doctor’ and also, astrology does not count”
“Name all the stars in the universe and then tell me astrology doesn’t count. And no way do you have four. You’re a… a… human and…”
“Gay?”
“I was going to say pretty, GAH, young.” He covered, “How the hell do you have four?”
The boy rolled his eyes, “Medicine, Maths, Physics and—”
“—law.” They both said in unison.
“That doesn’t answer my question. How old are you, thirty?”
The boy gasped, “I’m twenty-five, suck a dick.”
“And you have four degrees?” The doctor stuck his head out from under the dressing room, his hissing getting louder, “How? Most kids your age haven’t even moved out of their parents’ house, and here you are, halfway across the world, living alone with four degrees.”
He shrugged, “when you find out you’re going to die, you try and fit everything in.” He ducked down so he too could look through the crack, “and naming every star in the universe is impossible.”
“If you’re not dying too badly, you could come with me. I’ll name every planet and solar system we go to.” He smiled, a large beaming grin that stretched over his entire face, “you’re smart, really smart and I could use a friend, a companion…” his back turned to the boy as he scouted an escape route.
“Yeah, no. I can’t believe that’s possible.” The boy said absentmindedly, standing up calmly without the doctors notice, the curtain peeling back as he stepped out. “And what’s so bad about them, the…”
“Sarhgins. They form into your—” he paused suddenly, looking up from sniffing the ground, “why did you ask that—” the doctor spun around and noticed the boy missing. Frantically he pushed open the curtain, seeing the boy staring at the nightmare children, his hands resting peacefully by his side “Get away from them, you can’t look at them—” he ran up to the boy, blocking them from his vision, “run, you need to run!” he yelled into the boy’s face, spit falling onto him.
But the boys reaction was different to anything the time lord had ever seen, not paralysed in fear with bitter despair teeming from all pores, but instead pained as though he were sad for them.
“Look at them.” the boy whispered, “they’re nothing but slaves, can’t you hear their song?” his voice became harsh as he looked to the doctor, “look at them.” he ordered.
“Snap out of it, SNAP OUT OF IT!”
“I’m not ‘in’ anything, I’m not afraid. Doctor, look!” the boy took the doctor by his cheeks and forced his face to the light and suddenly he froze. Deadly still with fear.
“Stay away—stay away from me.” He whispered to the on marching platoon of aliens,” G-get back.”
“Can’t you hear that Doctor, they aren’t soldiers they’re slaves!” the boy tugged on the doctors arm, but it was limp, his jaw hanging half open, fearful as his eyes filled with dread. “What the hell’s wrong with you!?” he yelled. “What do you see?”
Small tears pooled in the corner of the doctors eyes, the eyes that seemed so much older than the existence of the man, “I… I see—” a debilitating burst of fear echoed through him.
“Don’t get to do this often—” the boy said to himself, before swinging his arm back and slapping the doctor full force in the face.
He spun around dramatically, gasping loudly as though he had just woken up, “alright, where were we?” he asked the boy.
“Oncoming army.”
“Right you are—” he took the boys hand in his, “run!”
They legged it through small, cobbled pathways, past churches in no apparent direction. The dying boy felt every single one of his ribs as the muscles around them expanded and contracted, felt the burn as shockwaves were sent through his knees, each impact painful, but in a way that let him know he was alive.
“You—” the doctor stopped, holding the boys hands as he swung him around in a circle, “how come you didn’t see your greatest fear, how come you could hear their song, no human I ever knew could hear that song, except…”
“Let me guess, Trina?” the boy said, a hint of smarm in his voice as he breathed loudly, trying to catch his breath.
“I was going to say Donna.”
“Jesus, how many women do you ‘whisk away’ in your ‘magic box’.”
“Besides the point. How could you hear the song, how come you weren’t afraid?” The doctor stopped spinning the boy around and pointed at him instead, his finger slipping out of point as he staggered around, dizzy. “what’s so special about you.” He stumbled forward, hand brushing the boy’s face. “I’m going to look inside your head- “
The boy laughed, taking a hesitative step backwards, “that’s impossible”
The doctor didn’t listen, instead, he took hold of his face, grip gentle yet firm as he lay two fingers on each of his temples, looking into the boy’s eyes with the sincerest of expressions. “If there’s anywhere you don’t want me to look, imagine a door and I won’t go in.” He closed his eyes, concentrating.
“you’ve got to be kidding me—” the boy said, choking back a chortle, “you can’t—” he gasped as suddenly his mind seemed to open, letting the man into it. The doctors eyes opened, and he looked, a gentle grimace on his face as he stared at the terrified flicking of the boys eyes as he plucked memories out of them.
“I’m sorry, I know it hurts.” The doctor whispered as silent tears fell from the boy’s face, “I can feel it and I’m so sorry for dredging it back up again.”
The boy almost couldn’t breathe, his mouth open in a fish gape, “it… it goes both ways doctor.” He managed to stutter out before severing the connection with a loud wail, falling backwards. His hands hit the cobblestone, cushioning his fall with an unhealthy crunch. “Why were they you.”
“What?”
“Why were the sahrgins you. I saw it in your mind, I saw they were you. Why are you so afraid of yourself?”
The doctor turned, “We need to free them. You were right. I heard their song; they need to be freed.”
The boy’s jaw was set firmly in place, “no doctor. I’m asking you right here, right now, why are you so afraid of yourself?”
He took a deep breath in, ignoring him, “the stars aren’t stars, they’re ships able to mirror the environment, only problem was, they mimicked the sun forgetting earth only has one.”
“Doctor. Why are you so afraid of yourself?”
“they’ve been sent here, but haven’t shown any severe violence yet, everything up to this point has been a show. We need to get back and—”
“Why are you so afraid of yourself?”
“Because I’m who people associate with war!” The doctor yelled, a huge sarcastic smile drawing his lips into a twisted grimace, “doctor means healer, savour, yet I have wiped out species because I was livid, I have committed some of the largest genocides in the universe. This is—I’m sorry I shouldn’t… can’t.” he didn’t speak, composing himself. When he spoke again, he seemed to be a different person. “We need to go back; we need to set them free.”
He turned and walked quickly in the opposite direction, trying to make his way back to the central marketplace.
“Doctor?” the boy called out after him.
“What? Wow, I really am being a grumpypants today.” He muttered under his breath.
The boy smiled sheepishly, “you’re going the wrong way.”
The doctor stopped, turning around, “right you are.” He said with a beaming smile that seemed all too fake to the boy, “come along, we haven’t a moment to waste.”
“More running?”
“Much more.” The doctor replied, his walk becoming a fast jog, “I like the running.”
They sped back to the marketplace and, much to the boys shock, the doctor was right. Standing before them was a huge arrangement of armies, stretching further back than the boy could strain his eyes to see.
He wasn’t afraid of them, for the sole reason that they weren’t anything he hadn’t thought of time and time again.
You end up finding comfort in the things that you find terrifying when sometimes they’re the only things you’re stuck with.
They had taken no form for him, and he could see the lost and vacant eyes, the rule abiding expressions, hear the song they sang.
Their song of slavery. It sounded like air as it whistles through a cave deep in the ground, or when every so often, through the bird chirps, a single moon chime makes its sound. It wasn’t anything that the boy had heard before and it had no words, but easily brought tears to his eyes.
“Hello.” The doctor said, stopping before he reached them. He had been smarter this time, a pair of sunglasses he had snatched and sonic-ed from a market stall covering his vision and severing the psychic link.
The boy stopped a few paces behind and watched.
“Reveal yourself.” The aliens ordered and the doctor smiled.
“I’m the doctor.” He said, a cocky smile on his face, “And I’m going to set you free.”
The sarhgins took two huge footsteps forward at once, the whole earth shaking beneath them as the boy crouched to maintain his balance, “we do not need to be set free.” They all spoke at once. “Let us scan you.”
A single of the sarhgins took a step forward and outstretched a palm to the doctor who ducked out of the way. “Ooh, magic flesh sensors, haven’t seen those in a while—” the doctor suddenly brought his screwdriver from his pocket, scanning the outstretched hand.
“Let us scan you or be exterminated, let us scan you or be exterminated—” the aliens began to chant.
The doctor paused, standing dead still on the spot, “fine, good I suppose. I just need to…” He turned around, making eye contact directly with the boy, “I would suggesting running right about now as far away as possible.” He said, using the same bubbly voice as before, as though there was nothing wrong.
“What?” the boy asked, mimicking his happy voice although his held an element of surprise. His eyes were manic with confusion as his smile stretched all too wide.
“What do you see?” the doctor asked, his teeth staying glued together as he spoke.
“Same as earlier.” The boy replied, “big metal things with plungers sticking out of them.”
“But that wasn’t what you saw earlier—”
“It was…” suddenly he blinked, hand moving to his head groggily, “no, no it wasn’t. it was the image, the video on the tv screens, the things with their shark teeth and—and—"”
The doctor almost exploded with irritancies, “they’re called daleks, and we need to run. Right now.” He yelled, grabbing the boys hand, and dragging him behind him. “They knew someone would hear the song, see them begging, they used perception filters to trick me.”
“I—I’m sorry I thought it was real.”
“don’t worry, strong filter, very strong.” He said to himself, “but these will be without a doubt, the most terrifying things you will ever see.” He pointed to the sky, “look.”
All of a sudden, the three suns in the sky flickered, becoming large grey saucers hanging in the air. The boy stared up at them, overwhelmed as he was dragged along.
His heart skipped a beat as he watched the doctor run, felt his hand in his.
A loud noise disintegrated through the air and suddenly the doctor gasped, falling to the ground, arm beating at the ground. “Heart—” he spluttered out, “—cardiac arrest.” He rolled around on the floor, clutching at his chest, “how do you humans work with only one heart?”
The boy stopped standing over him with a confused glance, scrunching his nose as the scent of burning flesh tore its way into his nose.
“What the fu—”
“Feel my chest, the left side stopped working.” The boy knelt by his face, his eyebrows reaching higher than his hairline.
“I’m a doctor, that’s not—”
The doctor grabbed the boys wrist, pulling him down. “Feel my chest.”
There was a second of sweet eye contact.
“This is by far the weirdest way anyone has tried to have sex with me.” The boy said quietly. He lightly unbuttoned the doctors shirt, his hands feeling over his body until he felt the cavity where the man’s heart should be.
Nothing.
He moved his hands, hovering slowly to the right and suddenly felt the soft beat flutter from his chest.
“Two hearts.” He whispered, disbelief in his voice.
“Two hearts.” The doctor repeated, voice strained “it would be quite useful if you started the other one.”
Shots from the oncoming aliens shattered the boys ear drums and he ducked down, pressing his body over the doctor, shielding him from blasts.
“Love you.” The doctor whispered into the boys ear.
“What!?” the boy exclaimed, bolting upright, straddling the doctor.
“Those were your mother’s last words to you. You forgot because you’re still bitter.” He explained, his breathing beginning to fail, “please, start my heart.” He begged, “please.”
The boy swallowed loudly, and suddenly snapped out of it, raising both hands above his head before plunging them down onto the doctors chest.
The doctor gasped loudly before shaking his head, “didn’t work—” he gestured to his lips beginning to turn an icy blue around the edges, “not enough oxygen” he gasped.
“Fuck me Jesus—” the boy took a quick look over his shoulder, watching the daleks approaching, and pounded on the doctors chest again. His head lolled lightly to the side and the boy suddenly felt a bitter chill set over him. Panic. “Okay, doctor, can you hear me?” he asked the paling face. His voice was calm, the exact opposite of how he felt.
The man beneath him nodded, trying to sit back up.
“Okay, I’m going to have to perform an emergency heart massage.”
“you’re twenty-five…” the doctor muttered quietly, “you’re not a surgeon.”
“I’ve done this before.” The boy said, “but it’s going to hurt, here—” he undid the timelords tie and stuffed it into his mouth, “I’m so sorry.”
He sat up, looking around for anything he could use. He suddenly found what he was looking for in the shape of a long pin attached to the doctors cuff. He winced as he made an incision on the side of the man’s chest over the ribcage and made several deeper ones to reach through the skin. He cut through to the bone, apologising profoundly as the doctor cried out and sweated, hair sticking to his forehead as he moaned into the tie. The boy reached through his ribcage, hands as small as possible and felt through the chest area, finding the place where the doctors heart was. He gently squeezed it, talking quietly to the doctor as he flitted on the edge of consciousness.
And then suddenly in his palm the heart leapt to life, beating in his hand.
“I did it.” he whispered to himself in disbelief. “Hear that doctor, I did it.”
But the doctor was lying unconscious beneath him.
And the daleks were getting closer, their terrorised robotic voices screaming the words.
Exterminate. Exterminate. Exterminate.
“Hey, hi, now would be a great time for you to get up.” He said to the body he was still straddling, taking hold of his face as he tried to stop it from rolling. He took a swift look up at the oncoming storm and then back down, searching through the doctor’s pockets. His hands suddenly wrapped around the sonic screwdriver, and he gasped, holding it high into the air.
“Okay. Sonic equals frequency, a high enough frequency could disrupt their mainframe…” he whispered to himself, trying to find the buttons, “how the hell does this bloody thing work.” He shook it several times, pressing the button as the light clicked on and off weakly.
He scrambled up off of the doctor, shaking the sonic screwdriver now as hard as he could, but the light still let off its faint glow, not strong enough but to burst a few telephone wires hanging above the oncoming army.
“Doctor—” he called over his shoulder, “I think I need you.”
He tried not to panic, but it became very difficult when they suddenly all stopped, the plunger like objects attached to their bodies outstretching, converging on him.
He backed up slowly, trying to reach the doctor, but suddenly his foot snagged on an uneven part of cobblestone, and he tripped, gasping loudly as his tail bone sent a jolt of pain through his spine.
The daleks still converged.
He scrabbled backwards, hands feeling the slick blood that was still coursing out of the doctors side, and threw his body over the doctors again, trying to shield it with the last remaining life he had left.
“Exterminate, exterminate, exterminate!” they chanted. The mantra continued on and on and on until they suddenly fired, a huge swathe of light bathing the boy as he scrunched his eyes closed.
“Love you.”
The boy rolled his eyes while his back was turned to her. The hand holding his tray dropped to his waist. He stood up straight, turning to face her, “I have the gene.” He said bitterly.
He left the room and she died later that morning.
The boy expected a horrible pain and then dark.
But neither came.
“Does dying from some illness mean you have a death wish?” He suddenly heard the doctor say. “Why the hell would you try and shield me when I could’ve already bled out onto the floor?”
The boy sat up, head snapping down to the man beneath him crunched into a ball, “oooh you bastard.” He cooed, “you bastard.”
“Okay, maybe just get behind me… the daleks should know by now not to mess with me while I’m still regenerating.” The boy hopped over him and suddenly the doctor howled in pain, expanding as he expelled all of the daleks energy in a bright sunflower glow. All exposed skin glittering and shimmering in such a bright light that the boy had to cover his face, look away as he peeked through the gaps between his fingers.
There was a second of very quiet and suddenly a loud ‘kaboom’ echoed like a sonic boom through the air.
Every single one of the daleks exploded into a frenzied boom, above him, in the sky, the huge planet sized ships followed, ash tracking through the sky.
“Holy shit.” The boy whispered to himself.
He turned to the doctor.
“Holy shit.” He repeated, this time yelling.
The doctor smirked cockily, “I know.”
“I meant the huge sale at Ralph Lauren.” The boy said, pointing at the daunting shop window behind them, “but I guess your thing was pretty cool too.” He mimicked the doctors smirk.
The doctor stood up, walking through wreckage, “um that heart thing.” He said, pausing to see the boy, “well done.”
“Oh god.” The boy’s face dropped, “I need to—we need to get you to a hospital.” He rushed to the doctors side, forcing him back down to the ground, and ripped open his shirt again revealing a pink scar. “How did you do this.”
“I have two hearts, what else do you think I can do.” The doctor replied, sitting up again so he could button his shirt, well what few buttons still remained. “Well, this has been awfully fun, but I think I parked my time machine in your house and don’t know how to get back.”
“I—”
“This way?” he asked, pointing.
The boy shook his head and stood up, walking the doctor back to the dingy flat he called home in silence.
“I believe you have something that belongs to me.” The doctor asked, putting out his hand.
The boy smiled, putting down the screwdriver that had been tantalizingly gripped in his hand, balancing it on the doctors palm.
The carpet felt different, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. The air felt different. More electric.
Is this how life usually feels? He thought to himself.
“Well, um… goodbye.” The boy said.
The was a hint of melancholy in his voice as he stepped into the tiny bedroom, the effects of the earth needing saving, wearing off once more as the grey tinge his life took began to come back to him.
The doctor followed, hands in his tartan trouser pockets that were ever so slightly too small and incredibly ugly. “I don’t believe in goodbyes. Haven’t said it once, will never say it.”
“why’s that?”
The doctor smiled, that goofy smile that made the rest of the universe light up, “because I can always find you.”
The boy laughed callously, “you won’t be able to find me once I’m dead.” He morbidly joked.
“On the contrary—” said the doctor, “you would be surprised with what my ‘magical blue box’ can do.”
The boy shook his head, the laugh staying on his face, “if that were true, then we would have found that kind of technology by now.”
The doctor didn’t say anything, instead walked over to the little blue police box in the corner of the room.
He searched his pockets, finding a key, and inserted it carefully into the lock that the boy hadn’t even noticed.
There was a satisfying click as the key turned, the door springing open, with a slight creak, as though it were begging to let people in. The doctor pressed his back to the other side of the blue panel, and gestured inwards.
The boy looked at him, a quizzical look.
The doctor mimicked his expression before smiling brightly, keeping watch as the boy cautiously took a step into the police box, “if this is some kind of trick then…” He trailed off as he entered… “it’s bigger. It’s bigger on the inside.” The boy whispered.
“that’s always my favourite part.” The doctor said, his eyes meeting the boy’s with a flushed sparkle.
“Nope, I’m done, this is officially absurd.” He exclaimed, “no way is this even remotely possible, and, even if it was, you cannot time travel in this ol’ rusty thing.” He pouted. “The meds must’ve hit me harder than expected, maybe you were death, maybe this is just some weird dream, maybe I didn’t actually wake up this morning—”
“Let me prove it.” the doctor stated.
The boy stood; arms folded moodily across his chest.
“I’m proving it, I’m doing it whether you want me to or not, I’m doing it!” he ran around the spaceship, “let me change your past.” He exclaimed excitedly.
The boy wiped his forehead, “isn’t there some huge movie law against going back into your own past? I mean, look at Marty McFly, he almost had sex with his mum.”
“Ah yes, I had a part in writing that movie, original ending was that he was his own father and ended up killing himself. I preferred my own version a little more. “He smiled and stopped, “and yes there are several rules, but don’t worry, cheap party tricks don’t count.” He winked. “The time is… eleven forty-two. Remember that.”
He pushed a few buttons, and with a start, the machine jolted on the spot, the boy still standing with an aloof expression, watching the mad doctor run around trying to press all the buttons alone. “Hey, turn the zigzag switch by your hip.”
The boy raised his eyebrow, exaggerating the joystick movement of the lever. He turned it and suddenly a loud shudder almost made him fall to his knees. “Oh ha-ha, fun party trick you have here.”
“Take two steps to your left, then turn the lever again.” The doctor ordered. The boy followed and suddenly the machine halted, settling back down again. He grinned ecstatically and checked the clock attached to a huge screen jutting out from the Tardis. “Ah. Nine am.” He said chirpily. “Precisely.”
“I still don’t get it…” the boy whispered to himself “How is this…” the boy trailed off as he stared at the doctor who had propped himself up against the large array of switchboards and controls. “What are—”
“Say hello to the Tardis, ain’t she gorgeous?” the doctor said, patting the huge metal railing around the centre.
“She’s… she’s something” The boy said, quite sure by this point that the man he had spent his morning with was on drugs, and calmly turned around, walking back out into his bedroom, seeing a figure lying in his bed. A very familiar figure. “I’m hallucinating” he said to himself. “Nope. Nope, that’s me, that cannot be me!” he whispered to the doctor.
“it’s fine, he won’t wake up.” The doctor said quietly. “I can feel it.”
There was a solemn pause, “I won’t?”
“Every choice you make, every single path you chose creates a new alternate dimension.” The doctor smiled, “you’re dead, well that version of you is dead. He died in his sleep, just how you wanted to.”
“How do you… how am I…”
“You said it yourself, disrupting the timeline is messy…” The doctors face suddenly turned slack, “this is… no wait, I’m the reason you’re still here, if I didn’t land in this precise spot this morning then you would’ve died, but I somehow changed the past… this isn’t… this isn’t possible… I’m missing something.”
The boy suddenly laughed coarsely, “you’ve got to be having a laugh, you did not take me back to this morning and I am not dead dear.”
There was a brief pause.
“Sure about that?” the doctor asked, eyebrow quirked.
He pointed to the door, taking a seat on the bed next to the boy.
“Pop pop—” the woman said, opening the door to the boy’s apartment, holding a plastic tray with to mugs of tea “ooh, sorry love, didn’t know yer had a male guest.” Siân said as she put down the tray, “no wonder I haven’t seen you yet love.”
The boy opened his mouth to speak but then thought better of it, turning to face the doctor who had found himself a very comfortable position scrawled across the bed like a male model in the renaissance.
“I’m the doctor.” He said.
The boy rolled his eyes.
“Oh, I’m Siân hello.” She said, a little awkwardly, “Dear, you’re looking very good today, must be the friend.” She said with a wink. “She walked into the front room, taking two of the bottles of the small medication out, “I thought I’d pop around, I was a little worried when you didn’t turn up at yer usual time.” She called out to them.
“Oh well… “the boy looked suspiciously over at the doctor, “what’s the time?”
The doctor smirked as Siân replied, “nine o clock.”
“And it’s a…”
“a Sunday. You alright love?”
He sat for a moment. That couldn’t be right, surely not.
Surely not.
“Yes, fine. Good, better than good.” the boy smiled, “um the doctor can do the stuff today, thank you.” He said gratefully.
A confused look came upon her face, “oh, I’ll see you later dear.” She left the room, smiling that motherly smile of hers.
“I—I don’t understand.” the boy said as soon as she left.
The doctor laughed, taking the boys hands in his and pulled him back into the box, “you remind me of Trina.” He said, the smile suddenly falling from his face as though he had remembered her.
“Who was Trina?” he asked, jaw dropping open again as he saw the outstretching room in front of him that could have not possibly squeezed into the tiny blue police box. “You keep talking about her.”
“I—” the doctor suddenly spun on his heels, “why did you say was?”
“I just did.”
“that’s the thing with you humans—” the doctor started explaining, “-you have gut instincts. Trina is alive, Trina is fine… Trina is better than fine she’s happy.”
“But she’s not with you.” The boy said, nodding. “To be one hundred percent honest, I was almost positive you were gay until you started blabbering on about this Trina girl.”
“I’m a time lord, we don’t have gender.” The doctor stated.
The boy smiled, “doesn’t mean you can’t be into men.” He awkwardly let go of the Doctors hands, instead tracing his fingers over the thousands of buttons peppering the huge control system in the centre of the time machine. “I—I don’t understand. I can’t understand how this works!” he exclaimed, “I would have thought Mirrors, but there’s no sign of any vortices created…” he trailed off, “I don’t understand.” He whispered to himself.
“If you would like, you can come with me.” The doctor said quietly. He stood up straight, smiling at the boy, “you can visit anywhere in the universe, all of time and space. If you’re not too sick I mean.”
“I’m sorry Doctor, I lied.” The boy replied, “I—it’s bad, really bad. I don’t do anything anymore because I can’t. I would really love to—”
“How bad?”
“Not good enough to come with you—”
“How bad?” he repeated, much firmer this time.
The boy sighed, “Every morning, I wish I hadn’t woken up.” He stated plainly, “Wish I’d died in my sleep. I’m not allowed to eat, but even if I wanted to, the first thing every day that happens is that I get those god-awful Injection cocktails of chemicals I know can’t work and make me throw up for half an hour. The doctors aren’t aggressive enough because they know they can’t treat it, but they don’t want me to be in any more pain until the moment I die. My only friends are my doctor and her wife.” He ran a hand subconsciously through his hair and for the first time, the doctor could see how ill this boy was, “Then I do the same every day. I walk to the organic store on the corner of Brixton Road, I buy my neighbour enough fruit and vegetables for the day, and I walk home. Always past that little park I used to play in as a kid. I stop and I sit at the bench because I’m too weak to even make it home, and I watch them play, and I curse my mother to hell. Then I go to the hospital, and they always ask me the same questions. ‘Got anyone to help you with your treatment’, or ‘how’s the family’. But they know that my family’s all dead. All of them, same thing as me, and every night before I go to sleep, I think of how selfish my mother was. I was fourteen when I had to do all of this for her, seventeen when I had to do all of this for my younger sister, and now I’m the only one left and no one can do this all for me. So, I don’t have many friends, or anyone for that matter, because I don’t want to be selfish like my mother, she was told about all of the genetic predisposition risks, the fact that the mutation would carry in seventy five percent of her children, but still, she had us. She died when she was pregnant you know?” he shook his head, teeth clenched, “So, I’m sorry doctor, but I don’t think I can come with you.” He smiled sweetly, his voice becoming a whisper as he choked back the sobs, he never let breach his lips, “but you already knew that didn’t you.”
The doctor let out a small nod. There was a long silence before he spoke again. “I’m the last of my species.” He said, so quietly it was almost to himself, “I know how it feels to be surrounded by millions of people, who think you understand them, who think you’re the same as them, but to be so alone.”
“But I want to be alone.”
“You may want to be alone, but nobody wants to be lonely. Trust me, I’m 900 years old” He smiled, a bright almost manic smile the boy hadn’t yet seen, “come with me. Name a place, or time or any historical event that you want to go to.”
“You can’t be serious, I just told you that I couldn’t come.”
“Name anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”
“I—”
“Go on! Choose!” He yelled, pressing buttons and dials.
“Lizzie Borden’s house 1892. I want to know who killed her family.” He suddenly spat out.
The doctor paused, standing dead upright as he watched the boy, “cheery soul aren’t you.”
“Shut up.” The boy laughed, “Then can we bump into Freddie mercury and tell him to use condoms please?” He asked.
“Do you have a bucket list or something?”
“I also would very much like to know if it was actually lee Harvey Oswald who killed JFK—”
The doctor began to Whir the time machine into life as he danced around the centre like a mad man on cocaine, “ooh I was there, you saw the guy with the umbrella?” he asked ecstatically, “that was me! I was experimenting on the outfit side, no conspiracy there I’m afraid…”
A matter-of-fact expression parched the boys lips, “And if you can really travel across galaxies, Alpha Centauri.”
The doctor smiled to himself, “incredibly romantic that one, two stars so close together they appeared to be one. The legend goes they were built by two angels, one who then fell, and the pair met again in Eden as an angel and a demon…”
“--and then I’d like to go to my funeral.”
Even though the doctors back was turned away from him, the boy could feel the air let out from the man’s figure. He turned, a light smile on his face, “let’s start with figuring out who axed lizzies family to death.” He said. “I actually—” a sheepish grin fell over his features, “I never got your name.”
The boy smiled, “Whizzer Brown.” He said, putting out his arm for a handshake.
The doctor took it, “well, Whizzer Brown… hold on—”
And suddenly a large crash took the Tardis through the air as the boy toppled over, a giddy feeling wrapping his sensations around him as he was flung from side to side.
Life.