I Didn't Mean It (Doctor Who)

I Didn't Mean It

I slowly peered inside, blinking in surprise as the area lit up around me, suddenly bathed in golden light. I stepped in farther, gasping and reaching into my pocket for my inhaler, taking in a breath.

"It-It's-"

"Bigger on the inside?" Doctor cut me off, grinning like a child.

"I was going to say larger, but bigger works, too," I murmured, distracted still by the breathtaking display of lights and colors that formed the room around me.

Ticking and whirring sounds filled my ears, overwhelming me. I whipped around at every new flashing light, turning in circles around the room. I gasped once again as my attention finally directed to the giant console in the center. It was a silvery white and covered inch by inch with levers, switches, and buttons. The entire room had a blue-gold light.

"If you think this is amazing, you should see outside. That's where all the real amazing is," Doctor skipped around the center console happily, flicking levers and switches as he did.

"Hold on!" He warned as he cranked one last lever.

I felt a violent rumbling from beneath me and a familiar sharp wheezing noise split through the air, the same one I had heard praise on the rooftop. There was one last bang as the machine steadied.

I was about to take another deep breath of my inhaler when the Doctor grabbed my hand excitedly and dragged me over to the bright blue doors, sending it clattering to the ground behind me.

"I extended the oygen barrier so we could do this..." Doctor reached for the doors. Ignored the fact that that sentence made no sense to me as he flung the doors open and revealed what lay outside, saying "Ta da!" My breath caught in my throat and I put my hands over my mouth.

Outside was a spiral of millions of stars, glittering like tiny shards of glass on a canvas of black and splotched with brilliant shades pinks and purples. Galaxies shed brilliant white light over the entire scene and planets of all colors stood out in the distance. I felt a small tear slip down my cheek.

"I-It's..." I trailed off as I began to feel dizzy, staggering backwards and gasping for air I didn't have. My eyes rolled back into my head and I fell over. I felt someone gently catch me before everything went black.

~o0o~

My eyes slowly fluttered open, my vision crowded with black spots that cleared away one by one.

I sat up, looking around me. I was in an unfamiliar bedroom, laying in a dark blue bed similar to the color of the Doctor's 'Police Public Call Box'.

I slipped out of the covers and quietly opened the door, peeking out. The Doctor was sitting with his legs crossed neatly in a pile of wires underneath the console, wearing rounded, Harry Potter-like glasses and muttering nonsense to himself.

I tiptoed quietly through the hallways, wanting to explore this weird machine I'd heard him call 'TARDIS'.

What if I'm imagining all of this? Am I crazy? I thought.

I continued to tiptoe down a dark metal hallway, seemingly never ending, swiftly moving across the floor as if I were floating. I walked past several strange rooms, one including a swimming pool, until I saw it, stopping dead in my tracks.

There, in the middle of the hallway, was a giant library; bigger than I had ever seen before. Shelves of books spiraled up and up until I couldn't see them anymore. The front wall of he room was made entirely of glass, showing off the brilliant landscape of stars outside.

I ran in excitedly and twirled around the room, skipping and dancing. I'd never seen so many books in my entire life!

I began to tear books off the shelf, piling them up in order of which I wanted to read first. I found a little spot in the corner covered in comfy pillows with a view of the stars and began to read one, drinking every word up.

"It's brilliant isn't it?" A voice said, jolting me out of the form of entrancement the book had put me in. I nodded silently.
He sat beside me, looking out the window.

"You never told me your name," Doctor said after a while.

I glanced up at him, seeing him clearly for the first time. He was rather good looking, with chocolate brown hair that stayed in perfect position, seemingly effortlessly, and pale green eyes. I bet I wasn't the first girl he'd picked up in this thing.

"Alice," I replied finally, "Alice Rice."

"Well, Alice Rice, do you now see what you have to live for?" Doctor asked, grinning gesturing to the purple galaxies outside the window.

I took a deep sigh and replied, "Listen, this is all brilliant, really. As you can tell by my reaction, it was really beautiful. But I've been through more than you know, and what I was about to do was something I've been planning for years. I can't just go back home after seeing space feeling perfectly fine. I need to do this," I said firmly, forcing my voice not to break its even tone.

"Travel with me then. That way you can see what you have to live for everyday," Doctor smiled, his eyes pleading. I saw something else in them, too. Something I recognized to be loneliness.

For a moment I considered this, having new adventures everyday, forgetting my problems, running away with the mysterious Doctor.

I snapped myself out of it. "I'm sorry, I just can't," My lip wobbled and I felt a tear run down my face.

I walked out of the room and back to the main room, leaning against the console. I grabbed my inhaler off the ground and shoved it in my pocket. Doctor walked in shortly afterwards.

"Take me back to the roof," I said hoarsely.

"Alice, I-" Doctor began, but I cut him off.

"Take me back to the roof," I snapped. He slowly flicked a few switches and we landed. I walked over to the doors, pausing before I pulled them open.

"I'm sorry, Doctor."

I stepped closed the doors behind me.

~o0o~
Extremely short AN: Alice Rice is admittedly a pretty stupid name (I guess I can thank the random name generators of Google for that one) but it's too late to change it now so whoops.

Also warning you ahead of time, Alice passes out A LOT throughout the course of this fan fiction (loss of consciousness is my go-to way of passing time in my stories, sorry)