Earth Grazer || Doctor Who

XXXII. An Open Mind

~unedited~

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"Oh my god!" Adam exclaimed when he piled out of the Tardis behind Rose, the Doctor and Ella. The brunette looked around the space station they found themselves in, the Doctor had the Tardis controls set for random, but the loud engine noise gave it away. "Where are we?" Ella looked around at the architecture and huffed out a small breath at how hot it was in here.

"Good question!" The Doctor checked his watch, "we're around the year 200,000 and we're on some sort of spaceship ... no, wait, space station. Let's try this gate, come on!" the humans followed their designated driver, "that's the fourth great and bountiful human empire down there and planet earth at its height. Covered with mega-cities, five moons, population of ninety-six billion. The hub of a galactic domain stretching across a million planets, a million species, with mankind right in the middle."

Maybe it was the sight of their home planet in the future, up until now they've only been to alien planets but seeing your own, vastly different from the one you know could be quite a shock. So, Ella wasn't very surprised when Adam fainted on them, Rose apparently was from the small gasp that left her lips. "He's your boyfriend," Ella teased the blonde.

Rose pursed her lips minutely, "Not anymore." The time lord and the blonde immediately rushed to help Adam when he started to come to while Ella stalked forward closer to the observation window overlooking the earth. Something was tugging in her mind and she concentrated on a blank spot in front of her until the shouting thoughts became whispers again. Sometimes she really was okay, fantastic even, but other times she struggled with the weight that settled on her shoulders. It caused her a great deal of annoyance because she felt like if she didn't get over it quickly enough then the compassion that she found from her friends was going to run out and she would be asked to leave.

When she finally came back to the conversation, she heard the Doctor bragging about this fantastic period of history, "You're going to like this! Humanity at its most intelligent. Culture, art, politics. This era has got fine cuisine, good manners ..." just then a man bumped into Ella and caused her to stumble into the Doctor.

"Out of the way!" he shouted as a dozen more people appeared out of nowhere and started crowding around the group of time travelers. A food stall type contraption opened up and the man on the inside started shouting out orders. Rose slowly approached the food stall and the smell wafting over to her wasn't that much different from her time.

"Fine cuisine," she asked with a scrunch in her eyebrows.

"My watch must be wrong ..." he checked his watch for the third time that minute. "No, it's fine. That's weird."

"That's what comes with showing off, love. Your history's not as good as you thought it was." Ella shot him a small smile that he eagerly returned; he wasn't a fan of being wrong but these days he lived for that twinkle in her eyes that confirmed her smile was genuine. He defended his knowledge of history, claiming it was perfect as Ella studied the humans around her and noticed that not a single alien was in sight except the Doctor which contradicts him again. "Obviously not," she muttered to his defense.

"They're all human, what about the millions of planets? Millions of species? Where are they," Adam picked up on the same thing and Ella was quietly impressed with his observational skills that improved with every adventure.

"Good question," he thought about it for a second, "actually that IS a good question. Adam, me old mate, you must be starving!" The human male had a small wince on his face as he clutched his stomach.

"Nah, I'm just a bit time sick or my stomach still hasn't settled from ... you know." Adam shuddered as he thought about yesterdays adventure that saw them jumping out of a crashing plane and almost falling into a volcano if it wasn't for the Doctor managing to fix their teleports in time. The time lord brushed him off and led him to the food stall where the man was still shouting out orders, he asked how much a kronk burger was. Then, he led him to a cashpoint to withdraw the correct amount of credits for a couple of burgers for him and Rose. Knowing the Doctor though Ella guessed that instead he loaded the credit stick with like unlimited credits.