The Doctor's Mistress (Doctor Who Fanfiction) - Watty Awards 2012

II - How The Doctor Met Me

How the Doctor met me

Zera the weirdo! Zera the weirdo!

The other kids chanted as I ran away crying to lock myself in my room. Surely Madam Foster would see them in front of my door and tell them to run along without any kind of punishment. In my head, she liked to see them torment me.

But it wasn't as bad as before the Doctor came, when my "father" was hurting me.

At 10 years old, I was known as Zera the weirdo, they girl who nobody believed when she told the tale of the man in the blue police box. I couldn't blame them for not believing me, I wasn't quite sure I believed it sometimes, but it was the only thing I was holding on to as the long days in this prison of an orphanage went by slowly.

The Doctor said we would meet again and I spent every day hoping it would be soon.

 I lay down on the thin and uncomfortable bed and let the tears roll down my cheeks. Madam Foster didn't bother knocking at my door for dinner, I never came down to eat anyways. After a few hours of looking out the window and reading a several chapters of the book I stole from the orphanage library, I turned off the light and crawled into bed.

-------------------------------------------

 I woke up startled in the dark night. Something woke me up. A loud noise... a familiar one. My heart started pounding with excitement. I threw the covers off me and sneaked out of my bedroom, it was past 2am, no one was around. I went down stairs and I walked out the building.

It was cold and the first snow of the season was falling from the sky. I was regretting not putting my slippers and jacket on as I walked on the wet grass. In the distance, I saw it, the blue box.

I ran across the orphanage yard and stopped right in front of it.

"Doctor?" I whispered, afraid to speak any louder.

The door swung open and the man in the deep red bow tie walked out.

"Hello, little girl," he smiled. "What are you doing out it the cold at night?" he asked, looking around.

"Waiting for you. Why did you wait three years to come back?"

"Back? I'm sorry, but I've never seen in you my life," he stated.

"Yes you have," I insisted - I knew it was him, I never forgot those green eyes. "You came to my house and killed the thing pretending to be my father, putting me in this Hell hole of a orphanage!" I explained.

His eyebrows went up in surprise and I couldn't help but smile at the expression on his face.

"I'm sorry, but I really don't remember doing such a thing," he answered, but look curious. "Why don't you tell me more? Come inside before you catch a cold," the Doctor said and gestured to me to walk into the blue box.

I thought that he and I would be tight in there, but when I walked in, I was speechless. The place was huge and bizarre. Stairs leaded up to a glass platform where in the middle was a huge tube like thing and wires and such were everywhere. Other stairs leaded up, but I didn't know where they brought to.

"What is this place?" I asked, looking around in wonder.

"This is my TARDIS, but enough about that, you have a story to tell," he smiled at my amazed look.

We sat down around the tube and I told him everything. For once, he didn't seem to think that I was mad or odd, but he seemed to be thinking, as if what I was saying was possible.

"You really don’t remember? You knew my name and everything," I asked when I was finished.

"I don't think it's that I don't remember, it's that is hasn't happened yet, but even then..." he said, getting up and pasting back and forth.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand."

"This," he gestured around us, "is a time machine as well as a spaceship. I'm meeting you now, but the future me goes back to before this moment when you were only 7 year old. This is me before we met," he said, smiling that he finally figured it out, but his face darkened and his smile faded. "But it can't be..." he sighed and sat back down heavily.

"Why is that?" I questioned.

"Because my time is running out..." he admitted, running his fingers through his hair. "There won't be a future me to go back to the back to the past."

"But I was there, I saw you, Doctor," I assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Somehow, I was believing everything he was telling me, despite the absurdness of it all. I didn't find it hard to believe I was standing in a time machine. Maybe I was being naive, but I did see the box disappear right in front of my when I was 7.

He gave me a slight smile.

"Your eyes are blue like the TARDIS, you know," he stated.

I smiled back warmly.

"I think I should go now, I have a friend to visit," the Doctor said, getting up.

He turned around and concentrated on setting things on the TARDIS - his next location probably.

I didn't want him to leave or at least, leave me alone. He seemed sucked into his machine, running around it, pressing buttons and lowering levers and stuff. An idea appeared in my mind. He would be mad at me, but it was better than staying here.

"Well, goodbye, Doctor," I said.

He turned around and smiled at me.

"Goodbye," and he turned right back to his machine.

I walked up to the door and opened it and closed it loudly and hid underneath the stairs. He wasn't getting rid of me.