Doctor Oneshots

Doodles

The library was always fun. You'd loved ever since you'd first stepped foot in it, on your first day in the TARDIS, wandering lost and confused looking for a bathroom at two am your time. But you'd found this place, and suddenly forgotten your need to pee in favor of running down the aisles, fingertips brushing the beautiful books around you. Until you'd really needed to go, then the TARDIS had been polite enough to point you on your way.

Now, you still loved running down the aisles, picking books at random and reading them as you wandered. You mostly avoided stuff from your future, but you loved everything else. There were books from distant planets with fairytales you'd never heard of, there were ancient leatherbound volumes from Earth, there were children's picture books from odd interstellar markets, even your favorite stories from your childhood. And the best part was that the TARDIS translation circuit worked on these books too, so you could read whatever you wanted, from whenever you wanted. It was one of the most wonderful things about traveling with the Doctor.

You were in the middle of reading a signed special edition copy of the seventh Harry Potter book- "To my favorite Doctor, love from JK Rowling" . Crying your eyes out, you didn't notice that you'd wandered to a new part of the ever-changing room. It wasn't until you ran book-first into a huge, elaborately carved shelf (something that didn't happen often, as you were a reading-while-running champ) that you realized where you were. The annoyed glower on your face faded to slack-jawed shock as you took in the beautiful little alcove.

Towering shelves dominated the walls in the inset, each carved with lovely, swirling circular patterns in gold leaf on the dark wood. The floor was thickly carpeted in rich, dark red, and an overstuffed deep red couch faced a cozy little white marble fireplace, also decorated with the circular symbols. The books on the walls were in various dark shades, from midnight blue to blood red and ebony to mahogany. There were odd little white-glowing cubes spaced randomly all over the shelves, lending the corner a dim, mysterious glow.

A few items seemed out of place in this wondrous place. An empty pink tea cup sat on a saucer on a rickety table in the corner by the fireplace, and a single fluffy pink slipper lay abandoned under it, on top of a forgotten large, green jumper. The smell was odd too, not just old books, but two different men's colognes (one of which was vaguely familiar) and some flowery store-brand body wash.

The Harry Potter book slipped from your limp hand and landed with a dull thud. You moved forward without a thought and grazed fingertips across the volumes, stopping over a smaller one that was bound in black leather inlaid with gold. Pulling it out and sinking into the couch with a sigh, you curled in on yourself and let it fall open in your lap.

Odd, the first things you notice. The first thing that registered about this book was that the TARDIS wasn't translating the circles that you soon deciphered were writing.

The next was a Polaroid picture, stuck carelessly in the front of the book. The man in the picture was leaning against the TARDIS, arms crossed and an annoyed but happy expression on his face. He was wearing all black: black boots, black pants, black shirt, black leather jacket, which, you noted, matched the front of the book. His dark hair was cropped short and close to his head, exposing almost comically large ears, which matched his rather large nose and huge grin well. But the thing that intrigued you most about this picture was his eyes. Bright, laughing blue eyes that looked vaguely familiar, as if they belonged to a friend you hadn't seen in years and years...

Setting the Polaroid aside, you returned your attention to the book, skimming through the enigmatic pages until you found more pictures: a few more Polaroids, taped in, of various creatures and places, a few pencil sketches done with mechanical precision, a few feminine doodles in pen. Suddenly you smiled. There were a few lines in English on this page! Two different sets of handwriting seemed to be having a conversation beside a caricature sketch of the man in the first picture.

I don't look anything like that!

Yeah you do! It's like a mirror!

No, it really isn't! Here, I'll draw you!

Go on then, Picasso!

Here there was a little caricature of a woman, with big eyes and big lips pulled in a smile and light hair framing her face. It was done in pencil, probably by the same person who'd drawn the precise sketches, but in a softer style.

That one looks like you, see! At least I was nice about it.

Fine, fine, remind me to fix yours later, when we're done with Raxacri (that was scratched out) Raxoco (more scratching)

Raxicoricofallapatorius.

Right.

Fantastic.

You giggled to yourself. Who had written and drawn here? And why in this book? Looking back through, you thought maybe the whole thing was written into it, a bit like a journal. You sighed, wishing you could read more, and flipped the page past where you'd been.

It was blank. Frowning, you counted the remaining pages. There was more than half a book left, but the rest was empty except for what looked like a small footnote on the very last page. Letting out a frustrated snort, you closed the book and looked back over to the rickety table. There was something sad about it, the cup and slipper and jumper, like they were keepsakes from happy days long gone. Sighing again, feeling oddly saddened by the lost girl and man who'd left these here, you stood, put the book back on the shelf, and wandered out, glancing back one last time at the homey little nook before moving on.

You never found that part of the room again, and figuring that it must have been some sort of fluke that let you find it, you never asked the Doctor about it. About the one language the TARDIS didn't feel the need to translate, and the little table's keepsakes, and the girl and the man, and whether they'd ever made it back from Raxicoricofallapatorius.

He never mentioned it.