STARS IN YOUR EYES, doctor who

chapter one

CHAPTER ONE
OKAY THAT WAS WEIRD

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Much earlier than necessary, Meilin Ren's alarm went off, signalling that it was time for her day to begin. She sighed as she pushed her covers off and got out of her bed, turning off the alarm and putting on her slippers. Without bothering to get dressed, she headed out of her bedroom into the hall, passing into the living room. On the couch, she saw that her mother was already awake, sitting with a cup of tea — likely spiked — and staring blankly at the television. Meilin averted her eyes and headed into the kitchen to get breakfast ready.

Her mother, Liena, had been depressed for many years now, ever since Meilin's father had disappeared. She remembered her father well enough since she was a teenager when he left but she knew that her brother, Jianyu, had almost no memories of him. Jianyu was eight now but he was only four when they last saw their father. Not only did he not remember their father, but it was likely that he only remembered their mother as she was now; depressed, despondent and nearly incapable of taking care of her children.

When there was a small stack of pancakes on the counter next to the stove, Jianyu finally wandered into the kitchen, looking for breakfast before he went to school. She ruffled her brother's hair when he came into reach, causing him to bat her arm away as he pulled down a plate to put his pancakes on. He pulled a few of the pancakes onto his plate, then went to the fridge, pulling the syrup and orange juice out.

"Do you need a lunch today?" Mei asked her brother.

"No," he told her, taking the syrup and juice to the dining table. "Today is the day of our pizza party."

Mei nodded and placed another pancake on the remaining stack. A minute later, Jianyu came back into the kitchen and took his plate and a glass out to the table with some cutlery and she heard him begin eating. When she had a few more pancakes on her stack, Mei divided them into two stacks. She took them both out, placing one on the table across from her brother and then crossing to the living room where she placed the other plate on the coffee table in front of her mother, hoping she would eat. If she was lucky, there would be a few bites out of one of the pancakes when she returned from work that evening.

They didn't speak much as they ate, Mei and Jianyu, the only sounds coming from the show that Liena was watching, some daytime drama that Mei knew her mother took in nothing from. If someone asked her immediately after the program ended what the episode she'd just watched was about, she wouldn't have been able to tell them. No, Liena just sat there and stared at the television, sipping her tea and maybe eating enough to count as one full meal by the time she finally left her spot on the couch to go lay in bed and hardly sleep.

Just after her father had left when she was fifteen, Mei had gone into her mother's room in the middle of the night, craving her comfort for her grief. At the time, Mei hadn't known the pattern of depression she was witnessing in her mother wasn't going to break and she'd hoped Liena would soon break out of it, not because her grief had passed, but because she knew her children needed the only parent they had left. But the only thing that Mei saw when she entered her mother's room that night — and every night she tried to get comfort from her mother — was her mother, laying on her side and staring blankly at the empty spot where her father had once slept. Just like everything else, this pattern had continued for the entire four years since then.

When they had both finished eating, Mei collected the plates from the dining table and carried them into the kitchen, placing them in the sink to be washed that evening when she got home from work. She caught up to her brother in the only hallway their apartment had, the one that led to the bedrooms and the front door. Jianyu was pulling his backpack onto his shoulders and slipping his shoes onto his feet.