Watching the Doctor

Old Friends and Reunions

The room was small and bland. Not much bigger than a large cupboard. Cream walls, nice purple carpet, no furniture and no window. There was, however, a door. Taking a breath to steady herself she stood up slowly leaning against a wall for a minute. When did standing get so hard? Was the room supposed to be spinning? Probably not. She really wished she had her sonic so she could try and get some understanding of where she was before she inevitably found trouble. Well (almost) anything was better than lying in her cell alone.

She shuffled towards the door. Was that voices she could hear? Leaning against the door she put her ear to the wood. Definitely voices. Voices that seemed familiar. Where did she know those voices from? Her eyes widened with a sharp breath. But that was impossible!

That was when the door decided to give in, opening and causing her to fall out of her small cupboard-like room back onto the floor. She wasn't having a good day. No, not a good existence at this point. The sound of the door swinging open and her falling face first onto the ground stopped the voices. Pushing herself onto her elbows and rolling over into a sitting position (for like the second? Third? Never mind) time that hour (day? Who knows how long she had been unconscious), she looked up into the new room.

For a start it was significantly bigger than the cupboard she had fallen out of. It had the same dark purple carpet and cream walls but in the middle of the room was a collection of Tardis blue chairs, sofas, beanbags and pillows all facing a large screen. It looked like some kind of home cinema. More importantly, however, was the people standing in the room. They had clearly been arguing but had stopped to look at her as she collapsed out of the cupboard.

She didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Clearly, she was hallucinating as most of these people couldn't be here. It was impossible. Closing her eyes tight and then opening them didn't get rid of them. Just as she was about to try something else, she didn't know what yet, she noticed a hand on her arm. It was gentle, not harsh, so friendly? She hoped so at least. Maybe not a hallucination – the touch felt too real. Dazedly she looked to the owner of the hand.

"You alright there, cockle?" It was Graham. Caring, supportive Graham. Caring, supportive Graham that should be safe at home on Earth not in her possibly-not-hallucination-visions. He smiled down at her with such a soft grandfatherly smile that made her stomach turn, what had she done to deserve that look?

"Graham?" She managed to croak out, her voice sore from disuse. Everything in her head was screaming at her to curl into a ball and wait for the visions to disappear. It would be less painful that way. She pushed that instinct to the side to focus on Graham and not falling on her face again as he helped her back up onto her feet.

"You okay? You look a bit dizzy mate." Ryan. She blinked at him slowly trying to figure out what was going on. "How are we here? How are you here? Where is here anyway?"

"I don't think she is ready to answer any of our questions yet, Ryan." Yaz. It was her fam, all three of them. "I don't think we have ever seen you this quiet. Are you okay?"

She ignored Ryan's mumble about Yaz getting to ask questions in favour of turning to blink at Yaz. Shaking her head, she forced herself to actually register what was going on and answer. "I'm fine. Yeah, fine. King, wait no, queen of fine me. Yeah. What happened?"

"No clue, cockle. We were all at home and then a white light kind of swallowed us? Woke up in this room with all these people. Only recognised that Jack fellow. Do you know them? Some of them seem to know each other. They've been talking for a while, well arguing is probably the better word for it. No one seems to have any idea what is going on, but your name keeps coming up." Graham led her over to sit in the nearest sofa while the other two followed. She looked at the others in the room. Ghosts. That's what they were. They were all talking and trying very hard not to watch her and her fam.