Starting Again.
Featuring the 10th Doctor
Allonz-y-eeeaaaahhhrrrrggghhh!! Screamed the Doctor as he sat bolt upright and nearly fell out of the hammock he had strung up underneath the TARDIS console. He rubbed his eyes and tried to slow down his breathing. It was another nightmare about the girl who slipped through his fingers straight into a closed off parallel Earth. Not just any girl, she was his girl, the companion he had fallen head over heels in love with but now he had lost her. They’d got up to all sorts in the TARDIS, so much so that he was kind of relieved but also disappointed in a funny sort of way when it was clarified that it was Jackie Tyler who was expecting a new life. He was thinking of making a new rule of TARDIS inhabitancy. No hanky panky!
The Doctor ruffled his hair, sighed and tipped himself out of his hammock and proceeded to make a nice cup of tea. He sat down on the flight seats overlooking the buttons, bobbly bits, spinny wotsits and up and downy thing of his old girl. She was getting restless, The Doctor, after his breathless adventure with a rather shouty bride, had just parked up amongst the blues and purples of space and sulked and moped about her corridors.
He just didn’t see the point of visiting Earth again, he didn’t want to risk the spark of attraction between Timelord and Earth girl, not that anyone could measure up to his beautiful blonde sweetheart. The moment he had first clasped her hand he knew they were meant to be together. At first he thought he’d blown it as she refused to leave her frightened, mind blown boyfriend. He’d shut the doors and dematerialised. As soon he was out of earshot he’d kicked the console then hurriedly apologised. He stormed off to the past and gadded about interfering and sometimes just spectating until it finally clicked that he’d forgotten one very significant feature of his spaceship.
That had persuaded Rose Tyler to run towards his open doors and eventually into his welcoming arms. They were heroes in their own time and everyone else’s. She was so brave and clever and knew what to do in the heat of the moment even when he was trapped down a cavernous shaft or in a flimsy piece of paper. Their first kiss had come about because of Rose’s determination and enormous courage but tragically it also forced him to regenerate. At first Rose wasn’t happy with this new guy in an old man’s clothes, he looked like he should be on telly chatting about naff cars than commandeering a spaceship.
He’d quickly passed out and later woken up in some musty pyjamas and a raggedy dressing gown weighed down by random fruit lurking in the pockets. He’d quite liked the stripes though. While he was sleeping Rose had once again stepped up to the plate and summoned her courage to face thousands of Sycorax. He had been splayed out on the floor of the TARDIS until Jackie Tyler’s brew had seeped into the wiring and awoken him in the nick of time. A Satsuma had saved the day, the only type of orange good enough to beat the invasion. He was relieved it wasn’t a Tangerine, they were useless.
The Doctor rustled about in the box of food he’d found on the console room balcony, Jackie must have left it there. All he could find biscuit wise was some dry digestives, sighing he opened the packet and dunked one in his tea. He recalled once meeting a talking panda who tried to make him an offer he wouldn’t be able to refuse, said he could get him some top quality pastry. He inspected the crumbling digestive and thought maybe he would take him up on the offer, there must be better biscuits than this.
He drifted back into his daydreams and recalled the day that he had felt the most intense sweetness of any of his times on Earth. Rose had been determined to make him blush as she pushed him back through the doors of Boots with twenty quid in his hand. He browsed the shelves, sniffed a few shower gels and eventually sidled into the correct aisle, he glanced sideways and was overwhelmed by brightly coloured little boxes, their names were odder than any alien language and they all seemed to offer different promises. He then was startled to see a shop assistant marching towards him with a vacant grimace of ‘how can I help?’ on her face. He shuffled round to the opposite shelves grabbed what turned out to be a lip balm and sighed with relief in the queue to pay. They didn’t have this in Gallifrey, there was an izzy whizzy thing and if you wanted Gallibabies you got them and if you didn’t then you just got lovely sparky warkies.
When the Doctor sheepishly emerged back out into the high street and handed back a lip balm along with Rose’s advantage card and £18 change she huffed, told to him stay right there and stomped through the doors to do the job herself. When she returned with a plastic bag bursting at the seams, grabbed his tie and yanked him back into the TARDIS he felt like the luckiest man on Earth, Gallifrey and Sto.
He slurped the last of his tea and just before he was going to attend to a stirring in the pinstripes he heard what sounded like something scratching at the TARDIS doors. ‘What!?’ he exclaimed, he was floating in space, what could be outside? He walked over to the doors and slowly ventured a peek outside. What he found was a little brown mouse which promptly shuffled inside, climbed up onto the TARDIS console and pressed a specific combination of buttons and levers. The Doctor rushed up to the mouse, ‘oiya!! What d’ya think ya doingah!? The mouse squeaked at him in a very forceful manner but the Doctor did not understand any of the little creature’s tirade. While the Doctor did speak horse, cat and baby, he wasn’t the most attentive student at the Academy and often ran away and hid from the other kids. He’d hideaway and sit in the dark in tears. This had earnt him the snide nickname Barney. Because of this he’d not learnt the mouse language.
After a short time in flight the TARDIS landed, the mouse scrambled off the console and ran to the TARDIS doors. The Doctor checked the monitor which showed a very pretty and luscious garden, an Alan Titchmarsh on a good day environment. It looked like one of the peace planets, they were little pockets of safe relaxation and tranquillity dotted about the universe. The Doctor shrugged and went to open the doors, as he stepped onto the soft green lawn the mouse scurried away, the Doctor ran after him curious to see what the mouse was headed for. The mouse darted through an overgrowth of colour and out of sight.
When the Doctor caught up with the mouse he was horrified to see the mouse attempting to prise open the jaws of a plump, sleeping, enviably ginger cat and position himself under its sharpest incisor. The Doctor grabbed the cat and shook the mouse off its muzzle, the cat growled slightly but when the Doctor let go he flopped back down to the soft crushed grass beneath him. It was part of feline legend that this peace planet had the best catnip in the universe. The Doctor was fascinated to see that it appeared that the mouse was crying. There was a rustle in the bushes and out strolled a very furry silvery colour cat wearing a smart space helmet marked with the insignia of the S.S. Tuna.
Ah here was someone the Doctor could have a proper conversation with. Declining the offer of some catnip, the Doctor enquired about the presence of the cat captain and his now very lackadaisical but satisfied crew. It had turned out that their space ship had crashed and this being a peace planet, there were no replacement metal shops or noisy engineer services so they were pretty much stranded. The matter then turned to why did the mouse want to get himself eaten?
Through a slow translation of the mouse’s story, told by the mouse to the cat and then from the cat to the Doctor, it emerged that the mouse had a lot in common with the Doctor. The mouse had lost the love of his life and didn’t want to do anything anymore. Each time the sunlight dappled across the entrance of his home he raised up his furry body then slumped his belly back to the soil with a sigh of ‘what’s the point’. But then one day he remembered the legend of the Doctor and the plans of the space cats and made a decision.
The Doctor picked up the mouse and said to him ‘You can’t just give up, that love you had was precious and is still right there inside you, you owe it to the one you lost to give their love power, make it bigger and share it with the universe, show them, wherever they are, that you still believe in them and the euphoria you both shared’ the mouse wiped his eyes and looked up at the Doctor, cleared his throat and squeaked. ‘He says he’s ready, he’s ready to start again’ translated the cat. ‘Maybe you should take your own advice’ said the cat. The Doctor slumped to the floor and sobbed while the cat and the mouse snuggled up to him to offer him some comfort. It would be difficult but yes, the Doctor was ready to start again.
autisticinnerspace 