Fic: A Heightened Sense of Reality
Dec. 15th, 2009 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guineamaowTitle: A Heightened Sense of Reality
Rating: PG
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing/Characters: The Doctor (10th), Cassie (OFC)
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none
Word Count: 8,192
Summary: When Cassie made up her to-do list that morning, 'Witness my best friend's murder by alien garbage disposal' was nowhere to be found.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Doctor Who universe. It is the property of Stephen Moffat and the BBC. This story was not written for profit and no offense is meant to anyone. Cassie is my own creation and any resemblance to existing characters in the Doctor Who canon is purely coincidental.
Note: Written to satisfy a rather ravenous plot bunny that called for an original companion by the name of Cassie. It was originally intended to be the first part of a series, but I can't make any guarantees on whether or not that series will be continued.
Cassie looked up from her newspaper and glanced around the nearly empty bookstore with a sigh, hoping to see someone walk in - even if they were just there to browse and not buy. It was a weekday, so a bit of slow business was to be expected, but this just didn't feel right even for them. She had seen maybe half a dozen people come in since the start of her shift a few hours before and that was usually the number of customers that could be found wandering the store at any one time.
Of course, there was that article she'd just read in the paper about some sightings of a creature that had only ever been seen in the UK until now - specifically, it had said the creature had only been seen in the capital city of Wales. According to her manager, Fiona, who had only just moved from Cardiff herself three years ago, the sightings were real, but she'd never been convinced they were aliens at all. She thought they were most likely an international group of pranksters who were planning something really big for Halloween.
'But aliens do exist', Cassie told herself, remembering those terrifying five days when every child in the world had been at the mercy of a hostile alien race. Despite everything she'd heard before, that incident had firmly convinced Cassie that aliens were not as innocent as that fringe group from the UK - Torchwood, was it? - would have her believe. Those 456, or whatever they were really called, might have been on the extreme end of the spectrum, but it wasn't all 'take me to your leader' and 'we come in peace'. The only sci-fi movie that seemed to come even close to the truth was War of the Worlds and maybe that one with the alien airport thing in New York - she could never remember the name of it. They at least showed that there were some aliens out there who were evil in some sense of the word.
"They're all out to get us," she muttered, thinking about the homeless man who had taken up residence on a section of sidewalk just outside the shop. The signs he held up never asked for money - just gave random bits of advice or said things that didn't quite make sense. Right now, that bit of nonsense was 'They're all out to get us! The End is near!' in bold black marker.
"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting something, but who or what is out to get you," asked a very British voice suddenly, from somewhere just beyond Cassie's line of sight.
The shock of hearing this new voice without knowing where it had come from sent Cassie tumbling off her stool and onto the floor as she tried to back away from whoever the voice belonged to. Unfortunately, the space behind the front counter was limited enough that she ended up banging her head as she went down. 'At least I landed upright,' she thought, standing up carefully and brushing her hands over her skirt to smooth it out.
"Oh, sorry 'bout that. I didn't mean to scare you," said the voice again, which Cassie now noticed belonged to a tall, thin man with hair that made him look like he'd stuck a finger in a light socket. "It's just you don't hear someone say 'they're all out to get us' very often and actually sound serious about it. Is it a literal threat or figurative, like all those people thinking the government is out to get them just because they don't like what's being done?" The man paused, his look of curiosity fading slightly to something more closely resembling concern when he noticed the way Cassie winced a little as she stood up. "Are you alright, uh....?"
Cassie glared at the man as she righted the stool she'd been sitting on. "Cassie, and I'm just fine. Or I would be if you hadn't snuck up on me like that. I banged my head on the counter, but I don't think I'm bleeding. At least, I hope I'm not," she said, reaching up to the back of her head and gingerly feeling the bump that was already forming there. When she brought her fingers away, she couldn't see any blood, so at least her injury was just superficial. "To answer your question, it wasn't a serious remark. I was just thinking about something and it reminded me of the guy out there on the sidewalk - the one with the sign. Now, can I help you or did you want to just wander around and see what pops out at you?"
At those words, the man looked over both shoulders to see if anyone might be eavesdropping - there weren't even any other customers in the store - then leaned forward slightly, arms folded and resting on the counter. "You wouldn't happen to have a basement or any other sort of storage room in this place, would you?"
"A basement, yes, but I can't just let you go in there," Cassie said, taking up her seat again. "You see, we have a system to how we store books down there and if we start letting customers go down to browse through the shelves, the system could get screwed up and-"
The thin man cut her off by raising one hand. "That's not why I wanted to know about it, actually. I'm here because I was following something outside that shouldn't be here - and by here, I mean this planet, not just this city or this country. When it realized I was following it, I thought it would attack, but it just growled at me and ran around the corner of this building. By the time I caught up, it was gone, but the alley next to this building is a dead end, so it couldn't have just disappeared into thin air." He paused, straightening up and tucking his hands into his pockets. "If it's in your basement, then it could have done a lot of damage. This creature will eat anything, and I do mean anything, it can get its claws on. Why are you laughing? I'm trying to be serious here. This creature is a very real threat to you and anyone else in this building."
She'd tried not to; she really had. Cassie knew how it felt to be laughed at when you were being completely serious, but something about what this man was saying just seemed so obviously fake that she couldn't help but laugh at it. If she didn't know better, she would have guessed that he was part of some practical joke Fiona was trying to play. The man would get Cassie to open the basement door and, when she did, there would be something on the stairs to make it look like Fiona had been killed by or was in danger of being killed by this 'alien'. The whole thing would come to a head when Cassie went down the stairs to investigate and Fiona jumped out from behind one of the long bookshelves. Of course, Fiona wasn't much of a sci-fi person, so the scenario didn't quite work the way it should have, but there was always the possibility. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. It's just that I think I've figured out what this is all about. You must be a friend of Fiona's from when she still lived in the UK, so what I'm guessing she's done is talked you into helping her play some kind of trick on me.
"If she's offered to pay you in exchange for helping her, you can forget about it because this prank isn't going to work. I'm going to go over there and when I open that door, I'm just going to yell at Fiona from the top of the stairs so she'll know that I know something's up. You can stay over here if you want or you can follow me; just don't try sneaking up on me again." Cassie was vaguely aware of how ridiculous she sounded, but the prank war between herself and Fiona had been going on long enough to make her a little wary whenever one of her boss's friends showed up out of the blue.
The Doctor watched as Cassie made her way slowly down one aisle of the store to a door at the back that had, of all things, a 'Do Not Disturb' sign hanging on it. A sign which Cassie ignored in favor of tugging the door wide open. "I suppose saying I have proof that what I'm saying is the truth wouldn't help right now, would it," he asked, walking up to the door himself and peering over Cassie's shoulder.
"No, because even if you were telling the truth, what proof could you offer that there really is a ravenously hungry garbage disposal of an alien in the basement? Aside from luring it up here with something it might think was a tasty snack." Cassie turned to face the Doctor for a moment, pointing and giving him the kind of look one would give a child who was a notorious troublemaker. "And if you tried to use one of the books as a lure, I wouldn't hesitate to call the cops. Fiona!" The last was added as Cassie looked back down the dark stairwell and yelled as loudly as she could, making the Doctor jump slightly.
For a few seconds, there was no reply and Cassie took a deep breath in preparation to yell again. Then, just as she opened her mouth, something in the darkness below them let out a low growl. Frozen to the spot with her mouth still hanging open, Cassie watched as the Doctor reached around her to flip the light switch set into the wall just inside the door. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, just barely within reach of the yellow-ish light cast by a bare bulb in the ceiling, was a creature that had a human body with a head that looked like a cross between a piranha and a deformed shark. Its enormous teeth were stained with blood and dangling from one claw-like hand was the remains of an arm. If she squinted, Cassie could just barely make out some sort of mark on the inside of what used to be a wrist, but she didn't dare assume that it was the tattoo Fiona had shown off so many times since she got it just a few weeks ago. Slowly, she crept forward, fully prepared to approach the creature in an attempt to get a better look at the mark.
Before Cassie could take more than a half dozen steps, two things happened - the creature started to run up the stairs and the Doctor pulled Cassie backwards, slamming the door shut and pressing a strange penlight to it for a moment before backing away himself. It didn't take long for them to hear the muffled 'whump' of the creature running into the door, presumably because it couldn't stop in time. The Doctor pressed the still-buzzing penlight to each of the door's three hinges, then grabbed hold of Cassie's shoulders. "Cassie, do you have a mobile? I need to make a phone call, but I don't want to use the phone here because we won't be able to stay here if that thing manages to get through the door."
Cassie blinked slowly, then shook her head as if to rid it of something that was preventing her from thinking clearly. "Uh, yeah, it's.... Hold on, let me get it. Who are you trying to call, anyway? I could call for you while you keep an eye on the door," she said, running back to the front of the store and pulling her phone out of the purse she'd stowed under the counter.
"If I was calling anyone else, I might say yeah, go ahead, but this is one call I have to make myself." The Doctor took the phone when it was offered and dialed a number, then shook his head and shut off the call, re-dialing it with fewer digits than before. "Accidentally dialed a number for UNIT's base in London, sorry. This'll just take a moment."
Rather than eavesdrop on the Doctor's conversation once he got through to someone, Cassie walked to the front of the store and flipped over the little sign hanging in the window so it said 'CLOSED'. From what little she knew about UNIT, she could guess that they probably wouldn't be too interested in whatever might be left of Fiona's body, which meant that this would probably be the last time she ever flipped that sign over. Even if the local police weren't brought in, word would get out that UNIT had come into town and that their appearance had had something to do with an alien in this shop. Someone from the local news station would come by and ask to interview whoever had been working in the shop at the time; Cassie would have no choice but to tell the truth and she had the feeling UNIT wouldn't allow that. Which meant this whole thing could fall on her head if she wasn't very, very careful. The only choice she could see was to get out of town and hope no one came looking for her.
"If I'm going to be marked as a criminal, I might as well give them something to talk about that isn't a lie," she muttered to herself, taking the keys that opened the cash register and the safe from the pocket sewn into the side seam of her skirt. She would need money anyway if she was going to leave town and if she went to an ATM, even the one in the convenience store next door, the little she had in her bank account wasn't enough to even bother with - just the remains of her last paycheck and a bit of money that her parents had sent a few months back when Cassie had thought she wouldn't be able to pay her next month's rent. There wasn't even that much here, but it should be enough to keep her going until she could manage to get into another country.
She had just wrapped a rubber band around the last stack of money and shoved it into the bottom of her purse when she caught a blur of movement in the corner of one eye. Heart pounding, she dropped her purse and shoved hard at whatever had come up behind her - only to discover when she glanced over her shoulder that it was the Doctor, who was now picking himself up from the floor, but didn't seem too bothered by what Cassie had just done. "I'm sorry, Doctor. You just .... well, what do you expect? You sneak up on me when there's some sort of threat to my life and I'm going to freak out. Is UNIT going to send someone out here to catch the alien or were you just telling them it's here," she added, trying to switch the conversation to something, anything but what had just happened.
"To be honest, I'm not sure what they're going to do with it. It's only the third Hoix that's ever been seen on Earth; that's what it's called by the way, in case you wanted to know. Best case scenario, they'll get in touch with Torchwood and somehow get this thing to Cardiff so it can be sent back through the Rift, which is probably how it got here in the first place. I'd transport it myself, but I'd rather not risk it doing more damage to my ship than it's done to that door in less than ten minutes." The Doctor gestured over his shoulder at the door, in which there was now a splintery hole about the size of a human fist.
Eyes wide, Cassie picked up her purse and slung it over one shoulder like a messenger bag. There was no way they'd be able to stay here and survive long enough for UNIT to get here and do whatever it was they had in mind. That creature would eventually break through that door and when it did, it would most likely go after them instead of the books. Because of that, the only thing that really worried her was whether or not her shoes were up for a bit of running. They weren't anything fancy - just a pair of low heeled boots, so no chance of the shoes falling off - but the only time she'd really done more than walk in them was the one time she'd nearly missed the bus thanks to sleeping in late. Even then, it was a bit of a different situation to running for her life.
"Right then. I don't know about you, Doctor, but I'm not going to stick around and wait to see how fast that Hoix thing can escape," she said, running for the door as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She could hear the Doctor yelling something at her, but couldn't quite make out the words; not that it really mattered at this point, because the only thing that would make her stop running was the sight of the front door to her apartment.
It was a long run from the bookshop to her apartment building and her body ached with the exertion, but Cassie felt being here made it worth the trouble. And it reminded her of how she'd been meaning to get downtown one of these days and sign up for a gym membership. But she was safe, even if she was just standing in the front entry hall that served as a mail room for the entire building. She just needed to catch her breath first and then she could head upstairs, where she planned on packing up a few things and then relaxing for a little while so she wouldn't actually look like she was trying to run somewhere.
When she finally got up to her apartment a while later, she couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the Doctor. Had he decided to run off as well, though presumably in a different direction, or had he stuck around to wait for whoever was actually going to show up and help him deal with that alien? He certainly hadn't followed her because, if he had, he would have been here already. Hell, he probably would have been right behind her and already asking to use her phone again to make another call. Her phone...
Getting down on her knees in the middle of the living room, Cassie unzipped her purse and dumped the contents out onto the carpet, replacing things as she picked them up. A little travel pack of tissues, her wallet, keyring, checkbook, makeup, a few receipts, and even a couple of brightly colored - and very expired - condoms, but no sign of her cellphone. That meant she'd either dropped it somewhere between here and the shop or the Doctor still had it. If she was being entirely honest with herself, neither option was a very good one because, as nice as he was, she didn't really know the Doctor. Aside from names, they hadn't exchanged any personal information. He was a complete stranger and possibly dangerous, but she needed to get her phone back.
Fingers crossed, Cassie stood up and grabbed her house phone from its nearby wall hanging. Her only chance of finding her cellphone was the hope that the Doctor had kept it turned on. 'But no, that's not going to work, is it?' she thought, hanging the phone back up with a sigh. Her phone hadn't had much of a charge to begin with, so it was probably dead by now. If the Doctor decided to charge the phone up, it would give him a perfect way of finding her - or at least, it would until she left her apartment. But, in order to even find the apartment building, he would have to call her service provider and try to talk them into giving him her address so he could return the phone; in her previous experience with the customer service line, she knew it would probably take around two hours, a little less if he was able to convince them that it was something to do with the government or the police. Either way, it didn't give her much time.
*****
She hadn't been sitting on this bench for long, maybe an hour or so, but Cassie was starting to feel the urge to get up and pace around the station. After the disasters that were the local bus terminals and airport, a sudden train ticket cancellation was looking to be her only way of getting out of town. The man at the nearby ticket counter had said that, even though all three trains were completely booked, there was always the possibility of a cancellation or two. So here she sat, the only person in the station aside from a skeleton crew of employees and two passengers waiting at the far end of the station near the doors to the platform outside. They'd shown up about an hour after Cassie had and every few minutes or so, one or both of them would look over in her direction as if they recognized her or they were trying to figure out why she was just sitting there by the ticket counter. It made her nervous and the attempt at taking her mind off it by catching up on some knitting wasn't working.
Well, it was working to a point - she was able to work on the lace without accidentally dropping any stitches from the needles, but she had to concentrate harder than she would have if she'd been sitting at home after a long day at work, an audiobook or some music playing in the background. Work.... Now there was a subject she didn't really want to be thinking about right now. Whenever she did, all she could see were the bloody remains of Fiona's arm in that alien's claw, a meal waiting to be eaten, and the face of the man who had just barely managed to save her from meeting the same fate.
Even though she kept telling herself that she needed to stay away from him, something about him felt more honest than a lot of the men she'd met in the past few years. But behind that honesty was a feeling of danger that Cassie couldn't quite place, as if it kept slipping out of her grasp or proving itself wrong before she had a chance to think it out properly. She had a right to be nervous about him, though - didn't she? The Doctor had just walked into the store and started going on about a killer alien in the basement as if it was the most normal thing in the world. And maybe it was, for him. Maybe the sort of near-death adventure she'd been thrust into that afternoon was an everyday occurrence for the Doctor and so he just hadn't even thought about how anyone else who got involved might react.
A shiver ran down Cassie's spine at the thought that this man who called himself the Doctor could call up an organization like UNIT and have them respond to his requests with what she assumed was little to no arguing from either side. That kind of power was something many people would kill to have - sometimes literally. If that was the sort of man who had saved her life, what did that say for how safe she would be once she got on the train? Or even once she got to wherever the train's last stop might be? Even though she would have to show identification at least twice, perhaps flying would be a better option for now.
Trying to not move too quickly, Cassie put her knitting back inside a plastic bag, then shoved that into one of her suitcases and gathered up her luggage - purse, backpack, and a set of suitcases plus luggage cart that she'd impulse bought the year before at an after-Christmas sale. If she hurried, she could probably get a ticket on a red-eye flight, the kind that were almost always half empty. Just because she was having to risk being found, didn't mean she had to sit through a flight with a large group of people who had probably watched the evening news and already heard about Fiona's death.
She hadn't even made it to the door when she heard a sound that was something like a cross between a train and a half-broken food processor. It didn't really make sense, considering there were no restaurants or bars nearby and the sound was coming from the wrong direction for it to be a train, but it was the only way she could think to describe it. Whatever the thing was, its noise had lasted for less than a minute, leaving silence in its wake. Cautiously, Cassie pushed through the station door and out onto the sidewalk, looking all around her as she walked up the street in one direction and then the other in an attempt to find the noisemaker.
The only thing she found was sitting just inside the alley that ran along one side of the station and opened out onto the edge of the platform at the back - a dirty blue structure that had little lighted windows around the top and a lamp in the center of the roof. Closer inspection showed Cassie that the structure was, according to lettering just above the windows, a 'Police Public Call Box'. She was sure it hadn't been here when she arrived at the station, but it had just been starting to get dark then and she'd been in a rush. 'Probably someone's idea of a prank,' she thought, walking around to the front of the call box and pulling on the door handle. It didn't budge; pulling on the smaller door set into the one she'd just tried to open yielded better results. She couldn't see inside the Box itself - it was too dark - but there was an old-fashioned phone attached to the small door and, though she felt a little ridiculous, she couldn't resist picking up the receiver.
"You know, that's really not going to do you any good."
That voice made Cassie freeze and she looked over her shoulder, not really believing that the voice she'd just heard had been coming from the phone. There had been no dial tone, which should have indicated that the thing didn't even work or just wasn't connected to a phone line, but the voice had been so clear. Shaking her head, she hung up the receiver and started to back away from the call box, fully prepared to go back inside the train station and take up her seat on that bench again. The only thing that stopped her from doing that was seeing the door of the call box open and the Doctor step out, as if he'd been hiding inside the thing this whole time.
"How did you know I was here," she asked, clutching her purse tightly to her chest.
"I went through Fiona's purse before UNIT got to the shop - and before you say anything, I wasn't doing it so I could steal what was in there. I've already made sure that everything goes to her family; they can do with it what they will," he said, holding up one hand to reveal a metallic purple cell phone. "You left before I could give this back to you and I tried calling the numbers in your address book, but no one was home. So, next best thing was to see if Fiona had your address. She did, but this little woman on the ground floor told me that you had backed out of your lease and then left the building with a load of luggage."
Cassie sighed in frustration and pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment. "That would be my landlady. I don't know why she told you I'd gone, but you still haven't explained how you knew I was here. The most I've told anyone is that there was a family emergency and I had to move back in with my parents as soon as possible. Did you just go to all the terminals at the airport and all the bus terminals until you could find me?"
The Doctor looked away for a moment, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck in a gesture of embarrassment. "Uh, yeah. That's about it, actually. I figured you might want your phone back. Didn't take very long, though," he said, handing the cell phone back to its rightful owner. "Security at the airport was a lot tighter than I'd expected, even with the psychic paper to help me out, and I did have to avoid running into myself at one point, but that was about the only roadblock. It took maybe ..... half an hour once I got going."
"Oh, yeah right. Doctor, I've been living in this city for years. There's no way you could have just gone to the airport, three separate bus terminals, and this place in just half an hour. Even in good traffic, it would take almost 45 minutes just to get from the bookstore over to the airport. And then there's parking, which is a bitch at the best of times. Are you intentionally trying to mess with my head or are you just crazier than you look?" Cassie shoved her phone down into the bottom of her purse, then gestured over her shoulder at the blue call box. "I'm guessing you had something to do with this thing, too? I've got to admit, it's original. I've seen a lot of pranks that involved building things in strange places, but this is good."
"It's not a prank, actually." The Doctor turned and placed one hand on the door of the call box, stroking it in much the same way as she'd seen some people do with their cars. "She doesn't look like much, I know, but this is my ship. We've been through a lot, especially in the last few years."
Cassie bit her lip, unsure of whether she should laugh at the Doctor or just go along with what he was saying. "How can that be a ship? It's just a wooden call box.... thing. The phone doesn't even work right."
The Doctor didn't respond right away; he just smiled and pushed the door open again, standing to one side so Cassie would be able to go through. "Are you so sure about that? Go on, take a look inside."
"Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly," Cassie muttered, glancing back over her shoulder at the train station door. Common sense told her she should just turn around, walk back inside, and forget about this strange man who claimed to have a spaceship. At least, that's what she assumed he'd meant when he said the call box was his ship. The alien in the bookstore almost made this seem logical. "Okay, I'll take a look. But if this is some sort of joke, I'm going to run back inside and if you follow me, I will call the cops. Got that?" Without waiting for an answer, Cassie tightened her grip on the handle of her luggage cart and stepped into the call box, eyes tightly shut.
After taking a couple of steps, she'd expected to run into the opposite wall of the call box, but there was just empty air in front of Cassie's face and nothing for her free hand to bump into when she stretched it out. What was even more disturbing was the way the ground slanted upwards in the form of a metal ramp and the low humming sound that filled the space around her. Where the hell was she? It sounded like an engine room of some kind that was far larger than what could actually fit inside the call box. Curiosity finally getting the better of her, she opened her eyes.... and only just managed to stop herself from screaming in shock.
The room was bathed in orange-green light that reminded her of tarnished brass, with support struts that twisted up to the high ceiling like branches of a rare species of coral. From where she stood, she could see three doors leading off into other parts of the impossibly-sized space - two rooms and a long corridor that wrapped around a curve rather than a sharp corner. She didn't know how long she stood there trying to make sense of it all, but when Cassie finally remembered how to use her legs, she turned and tried to run back the way she'd come, only to find the Doctor standing in the doorway.
"Tell me this is a joke. Please. Just .... lie if you have to, because this thing makes me feel like I'm going insane. And with the day I've had, being crazy is the last thing I need to deal with." Cassie felt as though she were about to fall over and she reached out for the nearest upright piece of the ship, which happened to be one of the coralline support struts. Almost immediately, she could feel a vibration that matched the humming engine sounds around her and, just underneath that vibration.... "Why does this thing feel like it has a pulse?"
"Because it does. Well, not the same sort of pulse you have and certainly nothing like mine, but this ship is very much alive." The Doctor patted the same support strut that Cassie was leaning on and the humming seemed to grow louder for a moment, more insistent, like a cat that had just been given an affectionate pat on the head and was asking for more.
Cassie snorted and backed away from the coral, resisting the urge to wipe her hand on the side of her skirt. "Okay, let's just say that I believe you about this being a spaceship. It doesn't make any sense, but if this is a spaceship, does that make you some sort of martian..... thing or does NASA know more about space travel than they're letting on?"
"I'm not from Mars, no, but -"
"But you are an alien," Cassie said, cutting the Doctor off mid-sentence.
"Yep. Well, I'm half-human on my mother's side, but who's counting?" The Doctor ran up the ramp then and jabbed at a button on the console in the center of the room, shutting the doors with a bang that had both him and Cassie cringing. "Ooh, sorry 'bout that. The doors are being a bit tricky these days for some reason. Probably because I haven't closed them from here in .... well, it's been two or three lifetimes, I think."
"Why did you close the doors in the first place? I never said I was going to go with you."
"No, but if you're trying to run away from what happened at your bookshop, traveling with me would be one of the best ways to do it. You could try moving to a different city, a different country.... News about Fiona's death is going to spread fast and it will take a long time for interest to burn out."
"I'm not - Wait, how did you know I was planning on moving out of country because of Fiona," Cassie asked, dragging her luggage cart behind her like an unusually-shaped security blanket as she cautiously moved further up the entrance ramp.
The Doctor shrugged. "I didn't until just now. Travel as long as I have, though, and you'll start to pick up on things." He caught Cassie's gaze then and held it. "For example, the look on someone's face when they don't want to leave their home, but they can't bear the thought of staying. The reason doesn't matter. That look is always the same, from here to the other side of the universe."
Cassie wasn't sure how to respond to that, other than to break their eye contact and stare at a pulsing light on the console. Somehow, the Doctor had managed to pin down the real reason behind the rushed planning Cassie had done once she'd managed to calm down in her apartment - packing up only what she absolutely couldn't leave behind, writing down the names of a few family members, giving the list to her landlady and explaining that those people were to have everything that was still in the apartment, and of course, checking everywhere she could think of for the quickest ticket out of the country. Yes, she was still worried about someone from UNIT wanting to interrogate her, but all those worries and fears boiled down to one basic thing - losing one of her closest friends and wanting to get away from the painful memory of it.
Sighing, she plopped down on the worn-out bench seat that curved around one part of the console. "Every instinct I have is telling me that I should just thank you for saving my life and go back in that train station, because if I don't, I'll end up regretting it. I mean, what do you even do? Just travel around in this ship like some intergalactic hobo?"
"No one's..... ever put it quite like that before, but yeah, that's.... that's about it. Well, if you boil it down and strip away everything that makes life in the Tardis interesting." The Doctor sat down on the opposite end of the bench from Cassie and raised his feet to rest them on the console. "What happened today was just a bare taste of what you would experience if you decided to come with me. No money, no real home outside of your room on the ship, a chance to meet and sometimes save a lot of interesting species, and a hell of a lot of running. Blimey, that sounded like a recruitment advert for the Royal Navy. Or UNIT, depending on which branch you work with."
"I think I understand what you mean, though," Cassie said slowly, crossing her fingers behind her back and hoping that she was right. "You're saying that it's dangerous, I could end up dying, but it's a lot more exciting than anything I could do on Earth if I look past the danger. And that sounds wonderful, but it's terrifying. Do you think we could..... just see how this goes, maybe? Take one trip somewhere and, if I decide it's too much, you can always bring me back to Earth and drop me off somewhere that's not here."
For a moment, the Doctor said nothing, making Cassie's heart drop a little closer to her stomach. When he stood up from the bench and started fiddling with some of the controls, she was sure that he was going to tell her to leave so he could get on with whatever he'd been planning to do once he returned her cellphone. However, by the time she managed to get up, grab her luggage cart, and walk to the top of the entrance ramp, the Doctor had finished his control fiddling and was watching Cassie with the sort of look on his face that would normally be seen on a lost puppy.
"Didn't you just say you wanted to come with me," he asked, one hand hovering over the door controls just in case.
Cassie stopped and turned around to face the Doctor, frowning when she saw for herself the look on his face. "I do, but you never said anything and then you started poking around with all that .... stuff on the console and I just thought that maybe you were just being polite and that you didn't actually want me to come with you."
"Of course not. I was just setting the controls for our first destination." The Doctor smiled and reached out to grab the handle of the luggage cart away from Cassie. "Let's get this stowed away somewhere and then we'll be off. Next stop, Liverpool, 1961."
Rating: PG
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing/Characters: The Doctor (10th), Cassie (OFC)
Spoilers: none
Warnings: none
Word Count: 8,192
Summary: When Cassie made up her to-do list that morning, 'Witness my best friend's murder by alien garbage disposal' was nowhere to be found.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything in the Doctor Who universe. It is the property of Stephen Moffat and the BBC. This story was not written for profit and no offense is meant to anyone. Cassie is my own creation and any resemblance to existing characters in the Doctor Who canon is purely coincidental.
Note: Written to satisfy a rather ravenous plot bunny that called for an original companion by the name of Cassie. It was originally intended to be the first part of a series, but I can't make any guarantees on whether or not that series will be continued.
Cassie looked up from her newspaper and glanced around the nearly empty bookstore with a sigh, hoping to see someone walk in - even if they were just there to browse and not buy. It was a weekday, so a bit of slow business was to be expected, but this just didn't feel right even for them. She had seen maybe half a dozen people come in since the start of her shift a few hours before and that was usually the number of customers that could be found wandering the store at any one time.
Of course, there was that article she'd just read in the paper about some sightings of a creature that had only ever been seen in the UK until now - specifically, it had said the creature had only been seen in the capital city of Wales. According to her manager, Fiona, who had only just moved from Cardiff herself three years ago, the sightings were real, but she'd never been convinced they were aliens at all. She thought they were most likely an international group of pranksters who were planning something really big for Halloween.
'But aliens do exist', Cassie told herself, remembering those terrifying five days when every child in the world had been at the mercy of a hostile alien race. Despite everything she'd heard before, that incident had firmly convinced Cassie that aliens were not as innocent as that fringe group from the UK - Torchwood, was it? - would have her believe. Those 456, or whatever they were really called, might have been on the extreme end of the spectrum, but it wasn't all 'take me to your leader' and 'we come in peace'. The only sci-fi movie that seemed to come even close to the truth was War of the Worlds and maybe that one with the alien airport thing in New York - she could never remember the name of it. They at least showed that there were some aliens out there who were evil in some sense of the word.
"They're all out to get us," she muttered, thinking about the homeless man who had taken up residence on a section of sidewalk just outside the shop. The signs he held up never asked for money - just gave random bits of advice or said things that didn't quite make sense. Right now, that bit of nonsense was 'They're all out to get us! The End is near!' in bold black marker.
"I'm sorry if I'm interrupting something, but who or what is out to get you," asked a very British voice suddenly, from somewhere just beyond Cassie's line of sight.
The shock of hearing this new voice without knowing where it had come from sent Cassie tumbling off her stool and onto the floor as she tried to back away from whoever the voice belonged to. Unfortunately, the space behind the front counter was limited enough that she ended up banging her head as she went down. 'At least I landed upright,' she thought, standing up carefully and brushing her hands over her skirt to smooth it out.
"Oh, sorry 'bout that. I didn't mean to scare you," said the voice again, which Cassie now noticed belonged to a tall, thin man with hair that made him look like he'd stuck a finger in a light socket. "It's just you don't hear someone say 'they're all out to get us' very often and actually sound serious about it. Is it a literal threat or figurative, like all those people thinking the government is out to get them just because they don't like what's being done?" The man paused, his look of curiosity fading slightly to something more closely resembling concern when he noticed the way Cassie winced a little as she stood up. "Are you alright, uh....?"
Cassie glared at the man as she righted the stool she'd been sitting on. "Cassie, and I'm just fine. Or I would be if you hadn't snuck up on me like that. I banged my head on the counter, but I don't think I'm bleeding. At least, I hope I'm not," she said, reaching up to the back of her head and gingerly feeling the bump that was already forming there. When she brought her fingers away, she couldn't see any blood, so at least her injury was just superficial. "To answer your question, it wasn't a serious remark. I was just thinking about something and it reminded me of the guy out there on the sidewalk - the one with the sign. Now, can I help you or did you want to just wander around and see what pops out at you?"
At those words, the man looked over both shoulders to see if anyone might be eavesdropping - there weren't even any other customers in the store - then leaned forward slightly, arms folded and resting on the counter. "You wouldn't happen to have a basement or any other sort of storage room in this place, would you?"
"A basement, yes, but I can't just let you go in there," Cassie said, taking up her seat again. "You see, we have a system to how we store books down there and if we start letting customers go down to browse through the shelves, the system could get screwed up and-"
The thin man cut her off by raising one hand. "That's not why I wanted to know about it, actually. I'm here because I was following something outside that shouldn't be here - and by here, I mean this planet, not just this city or this country. When it realized I was following it, I thought it would attack, but it just growled at me and ran around the corner of this building. By the time I caught up, it was gone, but the alley next to this building is a dead end, so it couldn't have just disappeared into thin air." He paused, straightening up and tucking his hands into his pockets. "If it's in your basement, then it could have done a lot of damage. This creature will eat anything, and I do mean anything, it can get its claws on. Why are you laughing? I'm trying to be serious here. This creature is a very real threat to you and anyone else in this building."
She'd tried not to; she really had. Cassie knew how it felt to be laughed at when you were being completely serious, but something about what this man was saying just seemed so obviously fake that she couldn't help but laugh at it. If she didn't know better, she would have guessed that he was part of some practical joke Fiona was trying to play. The man would get Cassie to open the basement door and, when she did, there would be something on the stairs to make it look like Fiona had been killed by or was in danger of being killed by this 'alien'. The whole thing would come to a head when Cassie went down the stairs to investigate and Fiona jumped out from behind one of the long bookshelves. Of course, Fiona wasn't much of a sci-fi person, so the scenario didn't quite work the way it should have, but there was always the possibility. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh. It's just that I think I've figured out what this is all about. You must be a friend of Fiona's from when she still lived in the UK, so what I'm guessing she's done is talked you into helping her play some kind of trick on me.
"If she's offered to pay you in exchange for helping her, you can forget about it because this prank isn't going to work. I'm going to go over there and when I open that door, I'm just going to yell at Fiona from the top of the stairs so she'll know that I know something's up. You can stay over here if you want or you can follow me; just don't try sneaking up on me again." Cassie was vaguely aware of how ridiculous she sounded, but the prank war between herself and Fiona had been going on long enough to make her a little wary whenever one of her boss's friends showed up out of the blue.
The Doctor watched as Cassie made her way slowly down one aisle of the store to a door at the back that had, of all things, a 'Do Not Disturb' sign hanging on it. A sign which Cassie ignored in favor of tugging the door wide open. "I suppose saying I have proof that what I'm saying is the truth wouldn't help right now, would it," he asked, walking up to the door himself and peering over Cassie's shoulder.
"No, because even if you were telling the truth, what proof could you offer that there really is a ravenously hungry garbage disposal of an alien in the basement? Aside from luring it up here with something it might think was a tasty snack." Cassie turned to face the Doctor for a moment, pointing and giving him the kind of look one would give a child who was a notorious troublemaker. "And if you tried to use one of the books as a lure, I wouldn't hesitate to call the cops. Fiona!" The last was added as Cassie looked back down the dark stairwell and yelled as loudly as she could, making the Doctor jump slightly.
For a few seconds, there was no reply and Cassie took a deep breath in preparation to yell again. Then, just as she opened her mouth, something in the darkness below them let out a low growl. Frozen to the spot with her mouth still hanging open, Cassie watched as the Doctor reached around her to flip the light switch set into the wall just inside the door. Standing at the bottom of the stairs, just barely within reach of the yellow-ish light cast by a bare bulb in the ceiling, was a creature that had a human body with a head that looked like a cross between a piranha and a deformed shark. Its enormous teeth were stained with blood and dangling from one claw-like hand was the remains of an arm. If she squinted, Cassie could just barely make out some sort of mark on the inside of what used to be a wrist, but she didn't dare assume that it was the tattoo Fiona had shown off so many times since she got it just a few weeks ago. Slowly, she crept forward, fully prepared to approach the creature in an attempt to get a better look at the mark.
Before Cassie could take more than a half dozen steps, two things happened - the creature started to run up the stairs and the Doctor pulled Cassie backwards, slamming the door shut and pressing a strange penlight to it for a moment before backing away himself. It didn't take long for them to hear the muffled 'whump' of the creature running into the door, presumably because it couldn't stop in time. The Doctor pressed the still-buzzing penlight to each of the door's three hinges, then grabbed hold of Cassie's shoulders. "Cassie, do you have a mobile? I need to make a phone call, but I don't want to use the phone here because we won't be able to stay here if that thing manages to get through the door."
Cassie blinked slowly, then shook her head as if to rid it of something that was preventing her from thinking clearly. "Uh, yeah, it's.... Hold on, let me get it. Who are you trying to call, anyway? I could call for you while you keep an eye on the door," she said, running back to the front of the store and pulling her phone out of the purse she'd stowed under the counter.
"If I was calling anyone else, I might say yeah, go ahead, but this is one call I have to make myself." The Doctor took the phone when it was offered and dialed a number, then shook his head and shut off the call, re-dialing it with fewer digits than before. "Accidentally dialed a number for UNIT's base in London, sorry. This'll just take a moment."
Rather than eavesdrop on the Doctor's conversation once he got through to someone, Cassie walked to the front of the store and flipped over the little sign hanging in the window so it said 'CLOSED'. From what little she knew about UNIT, she could guess that they probably wouldn't be too interested in whatever might be left of Fiona's body, which meant that this would probably be the last time she ever flipped that sign over. Even if the local police weren't brought in, word would get out that UNIT had come into town and that their appearance had had something to do with an alien in this shop. Someone from the local news station would come by and ask to interview whoever had been working in the shop at the time; Cassie would have no choice but to tell the truth and she had the feeling UNIT wouldn't allow that. Which meant this whole thing could fall on her head if she wasn't very, very careful. The only choice she could see was to get out of town and hope no one came looking for her.
"If I'm going to be marked as a criminal, I might as well give them something to talk about that isn't a lie," she muttered to herself, taking the keys that opened the cash register and the safe from the pocket sewn into the side seam of her skirt. She would need money anyway if she was going to leave town and if she went to an ATM, even the one in the convenience store next door, the little she had in her bank account wasn't enough to even bother with - just the remains of her last paycheck and a bit of money that her parents had sent a few months back when Cassie had thought she wouldn't be able to pay her next month's rent. There wasn't even that much here, but it should be enough to keep her going until she could manage to get into another country.
She had just wrapped a rubber band around the last stack of money and shoved it into the bottom of her purse when she caught a blur of movement in the corner of one eye. Heart pounding, she dropped her purse and shoved hard at whatever had come up behind her - only to discover when she glanced over her shoulder that it was the Doctor, who was now picking himself up from the floor, but didn't seem too bothered by what Cassie had just done. "I'm sorry, Doctor. You just .... well, what do you expect? You sneak up on me when there's some sort of threat to my life and I'm going to freak out. Is UNIT going to send someone out here to catch the alien or were you just telling them it's here," she added, trying to switch the conversation to something, anything but what had just happened.
"To be honest, I'm not sure what they're going to do with it. It's only the third Hoix that's ever been seen on Earth; that's what it's called by the way, in case you wanted to know. Best case scenario, they'll get in touch with Torchwood and somehow get this thing to Cardiff so it can be sent back through the Rift, which is probably how it got here in the first place. I'd transport it myself, but I'd rather not risk it doing more damage to my ship than it's done to that door in less than ten minutes." The Doctor gestured over his shoulder at the door, in which there was now a splintery hole about the size of a human fist.
Eyes wide, Cassie picked up her purse and slung it over one shoulder like a messenger bag. There was no way they'd be able to stay here and survive long enough for UNIT to get here and do whatever it was they had in mind. That creature would eventually break through that door and when it did, it would most likely go after them instead of the books. Because of that, the only thing that really worried her was whether or not her shoes were up for a bit of running. They weren't anything fancy - just a pair of low heeled boots, so no chance of the shoes falling off - but the only time she'd really done more than walk in them was the one time she'd nearly missed the bus thanks to sleeping in late. Even then, it was a bit of a different situation to running for her life.
"Right then. I don't know about you, Doctor, but I'm not going to stick around and wait to see how fast that Hoix thing can escape," she said, running for the door as soon as the words were out of her mouth. She could hear the Doctor yelling something at her, but couldn't quite make out the words; not that it really mattered at this point, because the only thing that would make her stop running was the sight of the front door to her apartment.
It was a long run from the bookshop to her apartment building and her body ached with the exertion, but Cassie felt being here made it worth the trouble. And it reminded her of how she'd been meaning to get downtown one of these days and sign up for a gym membership. But she was safe, even if she was just standing in the front entry hall that served as a mail room for the entire building. She just needed to catch her breath first and then she could head upstairs, where she planned on packing up a few things and then relaxing for a little while so she wouldn't actually look like she was trying to run somewhere.
When she finally got up to her apartment a while later, she couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the Doctor. Had he decided to run off as well, though presumably in a different direction, or had he stuck around to wait for whoever was actually going to show up and help him deal with that alien? He certainly hadn't followed her because, if he had, he would have been here already. Hell, he probably would have been right behind her and already asking to use her phone again to make another call. Her phone...
Getting down on her knees in the middle of the living room, Cassie unzipped her purse and dumped the contents out onto the carpet, replacing things as she picked them up. A little travel pack of tissues, her wallet, keyring, checkbook, makeup, a few receipts, and even a couple of brightly colored - and very expired - condoms, but no sign of her cellphone. That meant she'd either dropped it somewhere between here and the shop or the Doctor still had it. If she was being entirely honest with herself, neither option was a very good one because, as nice as he was, she didn't really know the Doctor. Aside from names, they hadn't exchanged any personal information. He was a complete stranger and possibly dangerous, but she needed to get her phone back.
Fingers crossed, Cassie stood up and grabbed her house phone from its nearby wall hanging. Her only chance of finding her cellphone was the hope that the Doctor had kept it turned on. 'But no, that's not going to work, is it?' she thought, hanging the phone back up with a sigh. Her phone hadn't had much of a charge to begin with, so it was probably dead by now. If the Doctor decided to charge the phone up, it would give him a perfect way of finding her - or at least, it would until she left her apartment. But, in order to even find the apartment building, he would have to call her service provider and try to talk them into giving him her address so he could return the phone; in her previous experience with the customer service line, she knew it would probably take around two hours, a little less if he was able to convince them that it was something to do with the government or the police. Either way, it didn't give her much time.
*****
She hadn't been sitting on this bench for long, maybe an hour or so, but Cassie was starting to feel the urge to get up and pace around the station. After the disasters that were the local bus terminals and airport, a sudden train ticket cancellation was looking to be her only way of getting out of town. The man at the nearby ticket counter had said that, even though all three trains were completely booked, there was always the possibility of a cancellation or two. So here she sat, the only person in the station aside from a skeleton crew of employees and two passengers waiting at the far end of the station near the doors to the platform outside. They'd shown up about an hour after Cassie had and every few minutes or so, one or both of them would look over in her direction as if they recognized her or they were trying to figure out why she was just sitting there by the ticket counter. It made her nervous and the attempt at taking her mind off it by catching up on some knitting wasn't working.
Well, it was working to a point - she was able to work on the lace without accidentally dropping any stitches from the needles, but she had to concentrate harder than she would have if she'd been sitting at home after a long day at work, an audiobook or some music playing in the background. Work.... Now there was a subject she didn't really want to be thinking about right now. Whenever she did, all she could see were the bloody remains of Fiona's arm in that alien's claw, a meal waiting to be eaten, and the face of the man who had just barely managed to save her from meeting the same fate.
Even though she kept telling herself that she needed to stay away from him, something about him felt more honest than a lot of the men she'd met in the past few years. But behind that honesty was a feeling of danger that Cassie couldn't quite place, as if it kept slipping out of her grasp or proving itself wrong before she had a chance to think it out properly. She had a right to be nervous about him, though - didn't she? The Doctor had just walked into the store and started going on about a killer alien in the basement as if it was the most normal thing in the world. And maybe it was, for him. Maybe the sort of near-death adventure she'd been thrust into that afternoon was an everyday occurrence for the Doctor and so he just hadn't even thought about how anyone else who got involved might react.
A shiver ran down Cassie's spine at the thought that this man who called himself the Doctor could call up an organization like UNIT and have them respond to his requests with what she assumed was little to no arguing from either side. That kind of power was something many people would kill to have - sometimes literally. If that was the sort of man who had saved her life, what did that say for how safe she would be once she got on the train? Or even once she got to wherever the train's last stop might be? Even though she would have to show identification at least twice, perhaps flying would be a better option for now.
Trying to not move too quickly, Cassie put her knitting back inside a plastic bag, then shoved that into one of her suitcases and gathered up her luggage - purse, backpack, and a set of suitcases plus luggage cart that she'd impulse bought the year before at an after-Christmas sale. If she hurried, she could probably get a ticket on a red-eye flight, the kind that were almost always half empty. Just because she was having to risk being found, didn't mean she had to sit through a flight with a large group of people who had probably watched the evening news and already heard about Fiona's death.
She hadn't even made it to the door when she heard a sound that was something like a cross between a train and a half-broken food processor. It didn't really make sense, considering there were no restaurants or bars nearby and the sound was coming from the wrong direction for it to be a train, but it was the only way she could think to describe it. Whatever the thing was, its noise had lasted for less than a minute, leaving silence in its wake. Cautiously, Cassie pushed through the station door and out onto the sidewalk, looking all around her as she walked up the street in one direction and then the other in an attempt to find the noisemaker.
The only thing she found was sitting just inside the alley that ran along one side of the station and opened out onto the edge of the platform at the back - a dirty blue structure that had little lighted windows around the top and a lamp in the center of the roof. Closer inspection showed Cassie that the structure was, according to lettering just above the windows, a 'Police Public Call Box'. She was sure it hadn't been here when she arrived at the station, but it had just been starting to get dark then and she'd been in a rush. 'Probably someone's idea of a prank,' she thought, walking around to the front of the call box and pulling on the door handle. It didn't budge; pulling on the smaller door set into the one she'd just tried to open yielded better results. She couldn't see inside the Box itself - it was too dark - but there was an old-fashioned phone attached to the small door and, though she felt a little ridiculous, she couldn't resist picking up the receiver.
"You know, that's really not going to do you any good."
That voice made Cassie freeze and she looked over her shoulder, not really believing that the voice she'd just heard had been coming from the phone. There had been no dial tone, which should have indicated that the thing didn't even work or just wasn't connected to a phone line, but the voice had been so clear. Shaking her head, she hung up the receiver and started to back away from the call box, fully prepared to go back inside the train station and take up her seat on that bench again. The only thing that stopped her from doing that was seeing the door of the call box open and the Doctor step out, as if he'd been hiding inside the thing this whole time.
"How did you know I was here," she asked, clutching her purse tightly to her chest.
"I went through Fiona's purse before UNIT got to the shop - and before you say anything, I wasn't doing it so I could steal what was in there. I've already made sure that everything goes to her family; they can do with it what they will," he said, holding up one hand to reveal a metallic purple cell phone. "You left before I could give this back to you and I tried calling the numbers in your address book, but no one was home. So, next best thing was to see if Fiona had your address. She did, but this little woman on the ground floor told me that you had backed out of your lease and then left the building with a load of luggage."
Cassie sighed in frustration and pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment. "That would be my landlady. I don't know why she told you I'd gone, but you still haven't explained how you knew I was here. The most I've told anyone is that there was a family emergency and I had to move back in with my parents as soon as possible. Did you just go to all the terminals at the airport and all the bus terminals until you could find me?"
The Doctor looked away for a moment, one hand rubbing at the back of his neck in a gesture of embarrassment. "Uh, yeah. That's about it, actually. I figured you might want your phone back. Didn't take very long, though," he said, handing the cell phone back to its rightful owner. "Security at the airport was a lot tighter than I'd expected, even with the psychic paper to help me out, and I did have to avoid running into myself at one point, but that was about the only roadblock. It took maybe ..... half an hour once I got going."
"Oh, yeah right. Doctor, I've been living in this city for years. There's no way you could have just gone to the airport, three separate bus terminals, and this place in just half an hour. Even in good traffic, it would take almost 45 minutes just to get from the bookstore over to the airport. And then there's parking, which is a bitch at the best of times. Are you intentionally trying to mess with my head or are you just crazier than you look?" Cassie shoved her phone down into the bottom of her purse, then gestured over her shoulder at the blue call box. "I'm guessing you had something to do with this thing, too? I've got to admit, it's original. I've seen a lot of pranks that involved building things in strange places, but this is good."
"It's not a prank, actually." The Doctor turned and placed one hand on the door of the call box, stroking it in much the same way as she'd seen some people do with their cars. "She doesn't look like much, I know, but this is my ship. We've been through a lot, especially in the last few years."
Cassie bit her lip, unsure of whether she should laugh at the Doctor or just go along with what he was saying. "How can that be a ship? It's just a wooden call box.... thing. The phone doesn't even work right."
The Doctor didn't respond right away; he just smiled and pushed the door open again, standing to one side so Cassie would be able to go through. "Are you so sure about that? Go on, take a look inside."
"Will you walk into my parlor, said the spider to the fly," Cassie muttered, glancing back over her shoulder at the train station door. Common sense told her she should just turn around, walk back inside, and forget about this strange man who claimed to have a spaceship. At least, that's what she assumed he'd meant when he said the call box was his ship. The alien in the bookstore almost made this seem logical. "Okay, I'll take a look. But if this is some sort of joke, I'm going to run back inside and if you follow me, I will call the cops. Got that?" Without waiting for an answer, Cassie tightened her grip on the handle of her luggage cart and stepped into the call box, eyes tightly shut.
After taking a couple of steps, she'd expected to run into the opposite wall of the call box, but there was just empty air in front of Cassie's face and nothing for her free hand to bump into when she stretched it out. What was even more disturbing was the way the ground slanted upwards in the form of a metal ramp and the low humming sound that filled the space around her. Where the hell was she? It sounded like an engine room of some kind that was far larger than what could actually fit inside the call box. Curiosity finally getting the better of her, she opened her eyes.... and only just managed to stop herself from screaming in shock.
The room was bathed in orange-green light that reminded her of tarnished brass, with support struts that twisted up to the high ceiling like branches of a rare species of coral. From where she stood, she could see three doors leading off into other parts of the impossibly-sized space - two rooms and a long corridor that wrapped around a curve rather than a sharp corner. She didn't know how long she stood there trying to make sense of it all, but when Cassie finally remembered how to use her legs, she turned and tried to run back the way she'd come, only to find the Doctor standing in the doorway.
"Tell me this is a joke. Please. Just .... lie if you have to, because this thing makes me feel like I'm going insane. And with the day I've had, being crazy is the last thing I need to deal with." Cassie felt as though she were about to fall over and she reached out for the nearest upright piece of the ship, which happened to be one of the coralline support struts. Almost immediately, she could feel a vibration that matched the humming engine sounds around her and, just underneath that vibration.... "Why does this thing feel like it has a pulse?"
"Because it does. Well, not the same sort of pulse you have and certainly nothing like mine, but this ship is very much alive." The Doctor patted the same support strut that Cassie was leaning on and the humming seemed to grow louder for a moment, more insistent, like a cat that had just been given an affectionate pat on the head and was asking for more.
Cassie snorted and backed away from the coral, resisting the urge to wipe her hand on the side of her skirt. "Okay, let's just say that I believe you about this being a spaceship. It doesn't make any sense, but if this is a spaceship, does that make you some sort of martian..... thing or does NASA know more about space travel than they're letting on?"
"I'm not from Mars, no, but -"
"But you are an alien," Cassie said, cutting the Doctor off mid-sentence.
"Yep. Well, I'm half-human on my mother's side, but who's counting?" The Doctor ran up the ramp then and jabbed at a button on the console in the center of the room, shutting the doors with a bang that had both him and Cassie cringing. "Ooh, sorry 'bout that. The doors are being a bit tricky these days for some reason. Probably because I haven't closed them from here in .... well, it's been two or three lifetimes, I think."
"Why did you close the doors in the first place? I never said I was going to go with you."
"No, but if you're trying to run away from what happened at your bookshop, traveling with me would be one of the best ways to do it. You could try moving to a different city, a different country.... News about Fiona's death is going to spread fast and it will take a long time for interest to burn out."
"I'm not - Wait, how did you know I was planning on moving out of country because of Fiona," Cassie asked, dragging her luggage cart behind her like an unusually-shaped security blanket as she cautiously moved further up the entrance ramp.
The Doctor shrugged. "I didn't until just now. Travel as long as I have, though, and you'll start to pick up on things." He caught Cassie's gaze then and held it. "For example, the look on someone's face when they don't want to leave their home, but they can't bear the thought of staying. The reason doesn't matter. That look is always the same, from here to the other side of the universe."
Cassie wasn't sure how to respond to that, other than to break their eye contact and stare at a pulsing light on the console. Somehow, the Doctor had managed to pin down the real reason behind the rushed planning Cassie had done once she'd managed to calm down in her apartment - packing up only what she absolutely couldn't leave behind, writing down the names of a few family members, giving the list to her landlady and explaining that those people were to have everything that was still in the apartment, and of course, checking everywhere she could think of for the quickest ticket out of the country. Yes, she was still worried about someone from UNIT wanting to interrogate her, but all those worries and fears boiled down to one basic thing - losing one of her closest friends and wanting to get away from the painful memory of it.
Sighing, she plopped down on the worn-out bench seat that curved around one part of the console. "Every instinct I have is telling me that I should just thank you for saving my life and go back in that train station, because if I don't, I'll end up regretting it. I mean, what do you even do? Just travel around in this ship like some intergalactic hobo?"
"No one's..... ever put it quite like that before, but yeah, that's.... that's about it. Well, if you boil it down and strip away everything that makes life in the Tardis interesting." The Doctor sat down on the opposite end of the bench from Cassie and raised his feet to rest them on the console. "What happened today was just a bare taste of what you would experience if you decided to come with me. No money, no real home outside of your room on the ship, a chance to meet and sometimes save a lot of interesting species, and a hell of a lot of running. Blimey, that sounded like a recruitment advert for the Royal Navy. Or UNIT, depending on which branch you work with."
"I think I understand what you mean, though," Cassie said slowly, crossing her fingers behind her back and hoping that she was right. "You're saying that it's dangerous, I could end up dying, but it's a lot more exciting than anything I could do on Earth if I look past the danger. And that sounds wonderful, but it's terrifying. Do you think we could..... just see how this goes, maybe? Take one trip somewhere and, if I decide it's too much, you can always bring me back to Earth and drop me off somewhere that's not here."
For a moment, the Doctor said nothing, making Cassie's heart drop a little closer to her stomach. When he stood up from the bench and started fiddling with some of the controls, she was sure that he was going to tell her to leave so he could get on with whatever he'd been planning to do once he returned her cellphone. However, by the time she managed to get up, grab her luggage cart, and walk to the top of the entrance ramp, the Doctor had finished his control fiddling and was watching Cassie with the sort of look on his face that would normally be seen on a lost puppy.
"Didn't you just say you wanted to come with me," he asked, one hand hovering over the door controls just in case.
Cassie stopped and turned around to face the Doctor, frowning when she saw for herself the look on his face. "I do, but you never said anything and then you started poking around with all that .... stuff on the console and I just thought that maybe you were just being polite and that you didn't actually want me to come with you."
"Of course not. I was just setting the controls for our first destination." The Doctor smiled and reached out to grab the handle of the luggage cart away from Cassie. "Let's get this stowed away somewhere and then we'll be off. Next stop, Liverpool, 1961."
