The Doctor's Keeper

The Doctor's Keeper
Cyrokin</i>

~.~( / )~.~

The Doctor was working underneath the TARDIS to curb his boredom. Things were always boring without the Ponds around to keep things interesting, but they needed their time together and the Doctor respected that enough to keep his nose out of their private business... most of the time.

He knew he could always take the TARDIS ahead a couple of weeks and pick them up. Then they could go on more adventures--- and the Doctor had quite a few in mind! However, the ship needed repairs sometimes, and the Doctor needed some time to make those repairs.

The bad thing was, being alone for too long drove the Doctor to paranoia. He'd start hearing things that weren't there, like that sudden knocking on the TARDIS door.

Knocking on the TARDIS door? Nobody knocked on the TARDIS door.

The Doctor knew he was hearing it for real. Knuck-knuck-knuck. The Time Lord disentangled himself from the masses of wires beneath the console and clambered out, not entirely sure he wanted to know what was outside, knocking. But what would be the fun in not knowing? He hurried to the door, taking off his goggles.

The Doctor opened the door. The mysterious knocker was a man, a human. He was tall, skinny, and had an enviably curly red head of hair. He wore a long black coat and a red turtleneck. "You were knocking, why were you knocking?" asked the Doctor.

"Oh, you know. I just found it odd that there was a big blue box sitting in the middle of this park. It wasn't here yesterday, you know."

"A mysterious blue box appears in a park... and the first thing you think to do is knock on it?" questioned the Doctor.

"Why not?" asked the ginger. "Obviously there was a point. I mean, you opened the door. Nice bow tie, by the way."

The Doctor had opened his mouth to respond, but the man's comment about the bow tie had changed what he was going to say. "Oh... thank you," he said, fiddling with the bow tie. "I like bow ties."

"I used to wear a bow tie, but I don't now," said the man. He seemed to be peering over the Doctor's shoulder. "Doesn't that mess with your mind?" he asked.

"Doesn't what mess with my mind?" questioned the Doctor, looking over his back to make sure there was nothing odd there.

"That," answered the man, pointing behind the Doctor. "How it's not the same size on the inside. I'll tell you, it messes with mine. I've never seen anything like it. What does it do?"

The Doctor grinned, eager to answer the question. "It travels in time," he said, expecting the man to give some sort of disbelieveing reaction.

Rather, the man kept asking questions. "Can I take a look inside?"

The Doctor deflated slightly. He scratched his head restlessly. "Well, if you..."

The man smiled disarmingly. "Thank you; your generosity will not go unrewarded," he said, patting the Doctor on the shoulder and marching right into the TARDIS.

It was a delayed reaction. The Doctor turned and swiftly chased the man in. "Oi! I never told you you could come in!"

"I wasn't talking to you," said the strange man, patting the TARDIS wall. "I was talking to your ship."

The Doctor seemed flustered. "Why don't you ever let me in on these things?" he whispered to the TARDIS.

"Don't worry; I'll be gone before you know it," said the man, dashing up to the console. He stroked the edge of the control panel. The TARDIS made a faint shrieking noise and shuddered slightly. The man drew his hand back in surprise.

The Doctor ran right up next to him. "What did you do? Don't touch anything else!" he stammered out, panicking. He whispered things to the TARDIS, feeling all over the place the man had touched.

The man shrugged. "I only touched the panel. I didn't even touch a button--- sorry about that. I tend to have that effect on machines." He grinned again, looking down at the panel again.

The Doctor didn't know why this man was making him so edgy. He was definitely human, but he gave off some sort of an aura. It felt familiar, but at the same time felt very different. He looked closely at the man, narrowing his eyes. "What's your name?" he asked.

"My name's Henry," said the man, beginning to circle the console. He went no further than giving his first name.

The Doctor circled to catch up with the man, who seemed to be ignoring the Time Lord for the most part. He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned Henry. The readings were very confused. Henry was human all right, but that was the only part that made immediate sense. He looked thirty, but was twice as old as that according to the scan. His brainwaves were mostly normal, but they would occasionally make some unexplained blip. Some especially strange readings were coming from the man's left arm. "What are you?" the Doctor asked under his breath.

"I'm just a traveller passing through," said Henry in response. "Much like you, Doctor. Much like you."

The Doctor was momentlarily struck silent. "I never told you I was called 'the Doctor'," he said.

Henry smiled in that same disarming manner. "So you didn't," he said. He rounded the console once again, looking up. "I used to be a doctor of sorts myself. I miss that life. I had all the time in the world just to imagine, to build... it seems like so long ago. You reminded me of me back then, so I called you 'Doctor'. I apologize."

"No, no, no. I really am called the Doctor," said the Doctor.

Henry looked at the Doctor with his piercing, otherworldly blue eyes. "Doctor who?" he questioned.

"Just the Doctor," answered the Time Lord.

"You're the Doctor without a surname, and I'm the Henry without a surname," said the man with a chuckle. "We're even, I suppose."

"Suppose so," answered the Doctor.

Henry checked the odd, bulky watch on his left hand. "Well, Doctor, I must be going. It was a lovely chat." He scuffed the grated floor with the heel of one foot and trotted toward the exit. Then he stopped and turned around, his eyes meeting the Doctor's once again. "Wait... give me a second. There's something else I just thought of that I need to tell you."

He jogged up to the Doctor again, his face edged with seriousness. He seemed to hesitate before he spoke his words. "Don't be afraid of silence," he said. "It can't hurt you." Then he smiled, nodded, and headed back on his way out.

The Doctor watched him go. When the man had left the TARDIS, the alien shook his head. "What sort of man was that?" he asked himself. Shaking his head again, the Doctor went back to work, eager to forget that this meeting had ever happened.

~.~( / )~.~