Dreaming of a Blue Box ✧ Doctor Who ¹ ✓

5 - Lily (Part IV)

Continuing from 'Lily - Part III'

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"SO DOCTOR?" Lily didn't find trouble in keeping up with his strides. She had paused when she called him by 'Doctor,' wondering if she'd ever get used to it. "Is 'Red' gonna be a normal thing or what?" She asked the question that bugged her since he first called her by the nickname he now seemed very fond of.

He looked down at her. "What? You don't like it?"

Their hands, which rested at their respective sides as they walked, grazed one another's ever so slightly. Though, it was enough for Lily's heart to skip a beat but she didn't want to think on why it had. She only took her hand back fast but smooth enough for him not to notice she had. "I didn't say that."

"So you do like it?"

Lily looked up at him and found that he was now grinning. The sight made her knees feel like jelly. "Yes?" She wasn't lying.

"Good." He continued a few steps forward, leaving behind Lily who, seeing the sight in front of her, she couldn't take another step. He seemed to realize she was no longer next to her so he turned around back to her. "Are you ready?"

There it was. It was so close and yet so far from her. That box. That beautiful, dark and deep blue, police public call box. She wondered how it was even more beautiful than in her dreams, the ones during the day and night. Lily could not explain the magnetic pull she felt coming off of the box. It was like it was calling to her. Singing a song of 'coming home' that she could only hear in her heart. "Yes." She blinked- her attention never starting from the TARDIS. "No. Yes?" She was sounding delirious. "Wait .."

He let out a chuckle. "Not having second thoughts, are you?

That was ridiculous- and so far from the truth. "Definitely not, it's not that. It's just-" She began to think up all the worst things that could happen if she opened those doors- wondering if it wasn't everything she dreamed it would be.

But then the Doctor spoke up, pulling her from her thoughts as he held up the plastic arm. "Kinda on a time crunch here."

"Right!" She snapped back into it and walked closer to the Doctor and the TARDIS- trying to stop her hands from shaking with either nerves or anticipation, or both. "Sorry."

The Doctor gestured to the doors with a nod of his head and a gleam in his eyes. "Go on then."

Lily looked to him and back to the TARDIS doors, pointing at them like she wasn't quite certain that he meant what she thought he meant. By the look on his face, she sniffled a chuckle and curled her finger back, dropping her hand onto the handle. With a push the door swung open by itself, inviting Lily inside- so she did. She took a step and then another and another until she was fully inside. The light illuminated onto her face. "It's-" Lily was truly at a loss for words- nothing could explain what she was feeling in that moment.

She heard the sound of closing doors behind her. "Oh, I know." The Doctor passed her with a grin, heading further up the ramp to the console and started to hook up the plastic arm to various wires.

"I mean it's .." She was starting further up the ramp and was still slowly walking when the Doctor's eyes met hers. "Everything I could ever imagine it to be. Fair enough, I've only ever been here in my dreams, but .." She ran a hand lightly over the console- her fingertips barely grazing the buttons but it hummed in response to her touch. "The reality is so much better."

The Doctor was smiling again, switching the closest monitor on. "So, it exceeded your expectations then?"

She laughed. "That and so much more." Lily joined his side, looking over his shoulder at the screen, then down at the wired arm. "Are you trying to track the creature responsible for the Auton attack last night?"