The Doctor's Son

1 - An Unearthly Child

London, Earth. 2005

Dorian heard the anguished cries of those left behind echo in his mind. There was nothing he could do about it as his hands flicked switches and pressed buttons on the living console in the centre of the massive room.

With a grating wheeze, Dorian was travelling in time, running from the war on the other side of the doors of the blue 1960's Earth Police Box.

But it wasn't Dorian who was running. It wasn't Dorian controlling the hands that operated the last T.A.R.D.I.S. in the universe. It wasn't even Dorian who left the screaming Time Lords and Daleks locked in the Time War.

It was his father. And Dorian was seeing everything through his eyes.

There was a shockwave that reverberated through time and space. Dorian's father fell forward on the T.A.R.D.I.S. console.

As his head hit the floor Dorian jerked awake with a cry, covered in sweat, lying in his bed in his London flat.

Dorian scrambled from his bed as though to run away from his recurring nightmare and pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window. He stood there for a while, trying to get the images of what he had seen out of his mind.

He'd had the same nightmare for as long as he could remember.

From the window of his flat, Dorian looked down at the March-rain soaked London street. He stared at the drenched humans, battling their way to work in the early morning with umbrellas pointed into the wind like shields. Humans, hurrying on their way, their minds always on their fleeting futures. It amazed Dorian how so many people could waste so many opportunities to actually live.

Dorian was so different from those people outside. Aside from his peculiar nightmares, there was also the fact that he was nearly 250 years old, and not to mention that he was only half-human.

Dorian Alexander Poisson had been born in Versailles, 1759, to Jeanne-Antoinette 'Rienette' Poisson - later known as the Madame du Pompadour. He had never known his father, he only knew the little things his mother had told him when he was a mere toddler. She had died when he was six.

His father was a Time-Lord from the planet Gallifrey.

People called him The Doctor.

After his mother had died, the King of France, one of the few people who actually knew of his birth, provided a house for him and his mother's most loyal servants. He was raised and educated there, becoming a talented singer, actor and a very gifted academic. That was until he was conscripted into the French army and sent across to America to help the French settlers in the American Revolution.

He was there for one week before he was shot.

It was as much of a surprise for him as it was for the rest of his company when he suddenly gasped for breath as they were about to close the lid on his coffin.

He hadn't aged since that day.

But that had been three centuries ago. It was now the fifth year of the new millennium and Dorian had moved back to London after a good few years of travelling.

That was his way; moving from place to place before people started to wonder why he didn't age, before people wondered why he still looked 21 when they had known him for years.

Dorian ran his hands across his face to wipe away the memory of the nightmare, raking his fingers through his thick blond hair. He was very good looking, or so he had been told many times, with a youthful face and sparkling blue eyes that wouldn't have been out of place on a Hollywood actor. But that was only on the surface. Once you got to know him you saw the depths of his eyes, the sadness and the age.

'You okay D?' asked Dorian's Irish flat-mate, Ronan, poking his head around the door of the room. Ronan's auburn hair was ruffled untidily; Dorian's outcry had obviously woken him up.

Dorian nodded. Ronan was one of the few people on Earth who knew his secret. He knew how the nightmare affected Dorian and let him have his space.

Dorian shook his head free of thoughts and began his day.