Burning Stars {A Doctor Who Fan Fiction} [REWRITE IN PROGRESS!]

Chapter 5

The Doctor twirled up a staircase, twisting and turning as he strolled up them. I followed him, down the same hallway where I had found the library. He stopped three doorways from the stairs and pointed at the door.

"I think the TARDIS likes you, Annabelle," he said, leaning on the wall. "Already has a place planned out for you already." He gestured at the door again. "Go ahead." I pressed down on the button next to the metal door, smiling as it slid open down the middle.

In the center of the back wall was a huge bed, already covered with sheets and a duvet. About ten feet above it was a balcony, stairs on the left side of the bed leading up to it. On the right side of the bed were two more doors, this time both wooden. Under the stairs that led to the second level was a large desk with a multitude of drawers and a desk lamp set on top of it. Book shelves lined the rest of the walls, each one empty, for now. The floor was covered with a mix of white and magenta coloured carpet. I looked at the ceiling, finding that it was my favorite part of the room.

It looked handpainted and exactly like the galaxy the Doctor had first showed me. The purples and blues and pinks and whites all mixed and muddled together perfectly. Tiny globs of white represented stars; there were even a few orangish-reddish planets scattered about.

I walked up the stairs to the indoor balcony, running my hands along more bookcases that were on the wall next to them. The balcony reached across the width of the room, with a single door at the end. It was a submarine-style door, complete with a big wheeled lock and a small porthole. I twisted the wheel and entered through the door.

It connected my room to the library, right on top of a bookcase. A ladder hung off one side of it so I could get up and down from it. It was around six feet wide; there was plenty of room to walk around on it.

I went back into the room, and back to the lower level. "Perfect," I said to the Doctor, standing in the doorway, looking amused.

"Good," he crossed his arms and stepped back into the hallway. "I've got one more thing to do; have a look around for a bit."

I started with the two extra doors next to the bed. The first one led into an en suite; the second led into a massive room full of clothes. It even had different floors, labeled by letters and time periods. The one my room was attached to was to section "A-S/13/T." I snatched up a pair of navy blue high tops while I was in there, remembering that I still had a missing shoe.

I reentered the room and began rifling through the desk. I found the picture in one drawer, with a new reinforced frame, and put it on a bookshelf. I found photo albums in another; the box of jewelry in a third.

I knew the basics of the room already, so I started into the hallway. I heard the Doctor talking to himself--or into a phone, as I saw at the top of the stairs.

"Hello, Ponds. Checking in. How are you? Not much to report..." I scoffed quietly. "...Surfed the fire falls of Florinall Nine. Not deliberately, just the easiest way out. Met Mata Hari in a Paris hotel room--what an interesting woman... Laid down some backing vocals." He flipped two switches at once, then pressed three buttons in a row. "I should...I should be coming any day now; helmic regulator's playing up, can't get the temporal steering right. I've got a bit of news, too...Oh, dear! I appear to have collided with ancient Greece! Argh! Bye-bye, Ponds!"

I gripped the railing as the TARDIS swung into motion. I watched the Doctor get flung around, entangled in the phone cord. I laughed this time during the elegance-lacking ride. Soon, the jerking died down.

"Oh!" The Doctor pulled himself off the floor, the phone cord wrapped around his head and upper body. "Not ancient Greece, then! We're at..." He tapped on a little clock attached to the console. "...Desero. Hm."

"It's not Florinall Nine, which means it's not invaded. I think that's good enough," I started for the doors, stopping with my hands cupping the handle. The Doctor hummed again, meeting me at the doors.

"That explains the name, then," the Doctor muttered as we stepped outside. "Desero--Latin for abandon."

We had landed in another field, but this time, it was occupied with different structures. They were all stone; each one was almost reduced to rubble. Vines hung and grew around the ruins; foreign plants of unnatural colours spread across the ground. A few of the structures that stood standing made the whole place looked like the inside of an abandoned castle.

"What year's this?" I asked, moving closer to a strong-looking archway that seemed out of place. I brushed my fingertips over it, tracing the small carvings that stretched across the stone.

"I'd say around five thousand-ish. That was when the human race began to inhabit different planets and start building their homes there. Some of them were based off different time periods; this one's supposed to look Medieval-y," he passed through the archway, exploring whatever was beyond it.

"Kinda magical, isn't it?" I mumbled, following him into the next set of desolate structures. "It's every kid's dream to get a castle to themselves."

The Doctor chuckled. "Was that yours?" He stared up a pillar, glancing at the carvings on it and measuring its height with his eyes.

"I wanted an adventure that nobody had ever gone on before," I smiled lightly, reminiscing how wistful my childhood had been.

"So did I," the Doctor replied, circling the pillar. "So I stole a time machine one day and left. Only returned now and then to check up on everyone...but the thrill--the thrill of discovery was something I had become addicted to, so I stopped going back altogether." He sighed like he was regretful but still proud of his actions.

"You just up and left one day?" I joined him by the pillar, looking out of a hole that could have once been a window instead of watching the pillar.

"Everyone knew it would happen eventually. I always wanted to go, I just didn't agree with their ways," the Doctor had started to lean out of the window, far enough that he could touch the ground. He picked out bits of grass from the dirt.

I wanted to ask him what he meant by 'everyone,' but I felt that it would spark up something in him. It was hard not to notice the look in his eyes when he talked about his past.

"Did you hear that?" He suddenly bolted upright, blades of grass still poking out from between his fingers. He started moving towards another doorway, staring at the carvings he passed.

"Whispers," he hissed, twirling around to face me again. "Do you know what whispers mean, Annabelle?"

"People?" I guessed with a shrug. "That Desero isn't really deserted?"

"Exactly!" He twirled again, facing a half-fallen wall. "You're more clever than you let on."

He spun back to me. "I say we find them. Because who would live in a half-standing castle?"

"Someone in hiding?" I guessed again, passing the Doctor through another open doorway. Nothing lied beyond it, except for a small cluster of tall pine trees. I moved slowly towards them, seeing as they were particularly Earth-like.

As I got closer, I could now see that the trees were placed around in a perfect circle. Each one was spaced exactly the same distance from another. On the opposite side of the circle, a tree was missing, creating a large opening that held a narrow stone pathway. It looked beaten down from hundreds of footsteps tramping onto it.

I looked over my shoulder at the Doctor. He was still scanning the carvings, looking flustered by the little swirled patterns. I stared down the path again, surrounded with clusters of different trees and small flowers lining the stone.

"Couldn't hurt to have a look..." I muttered, starting down the path that had the risk of both leading into nowhere or into some unimaginable danger.