Doctor Oneshots

Coffee and a Chat. (Ninth Doctor Imagine)

(A/N: There's not nearly enough Nine stuff out there, so I thought I'd just add a bit more. Enjoy some nice Nine fluff.)

It was raining. Again.

Though, of course, this was London, so it wasn't like you'd expected today to be sunny. But all the same, it was a dreary, grey, rainy September day.

And it was your birthday. A horrid one, at that.

You sighed and leaned back in your chair, putting a hand under your chin and moodily sipping your coffee, brooding on the day's events. First, you'd woken up twenty minutes late for school, then, when you got there, not one person had remembered your birthday at all. Then your favorite book had been stolen from your bag, only for you to find it later, food-stained and ruined, in the school cafeteria. After school, when you were supposed to be meeting your friends to go out to celebrate, you'd been stood up.

And now it was raining. Great.

"Lovely day, isn't it?"

You blinked and looked away from the window, up at the owner of the voice. A tall man with close cropped hair (and rather large ears, though you'd never say) smiled down at you and plopped himself into the seat across the table. You smiled back politely.

"If you like rain, I suppose." You turned your head back to the window, hoping he would leave.

"I like it myself, but I s'pose some don't. Don't understand why. Rain's so refreshing! It clears up all the dust and the smog and the car fumes and things, and it sounds pleasant, and it's fun to run in if you do it right." Clearly not. You refrained from sighing again, and instead raised an eyebrow and turned to look at the stranger in more detail.

He looked older, but not old. Mature, perhaps. As if you couldn't put an age on him at all. He wore boots, dark jeans and a dark green jumper, over which he had on a well-worn leather jacket. Overall, he looked as if he could be a workman of some description, or perhaps a traveler. Based on his way of talking, you assumed he was from somewhere in the North of England, and that it wasn't the first time he'd sat down to chat with a stranger, and that he saw nothing at all wrong with it. But he didn't seem dangerous, and actually the way he described the rain made it sound a bit fun. So you decided not to boot him from his seat immediately.

You put your coffee back on the table. "Well, when you put it that way, it doesn't sound nearly as bad."

"Oh, there's always a way of makin' things not sound so bad," he smiled, resting his elbows on the table. You mirrored him.

"What's your name?"

"(Y/N)."

He nodded approvingly. "'S a good name, I like it." You laughed a little.

"Thanks, I've had it since I was born." That made him chuckle.

"And what's yours?"

"I'm the Doctor." You blinked.

"The Doctor?"

"Yeah."

"That's your name."

"Yeah. Problem?" He said, amused, as if he'd had the same problem a thousand times.

You laughed. "Yeah, problem is that's not a name."

"It's what people call me!"

"But no one just calls people 'Doctor'!" you insisted with a grin, "People call each other by their titles and their names!"

"Your people do, but not everyone does."

That caught you off guard. "What d'you mean, 'your people'?"

He seemed to catch himself in a mistake. "I mean, you lot."

"Right, yeah, that clears it up." He shook his head happily.

"I just mean that other places, it's fine when I call myself that. No one asks any questions, they just call me as I tell them."

"Well," you picked up your drink again, "for normal people, there're titles and names together. So, Doctor who?" You toasted your drink mockingly and took a sip from the cooling coffee.

 For some reason, "the Doctor's" smile brightened and he chuckled to himself.

"What did I say that was so funny?"

"Nothin', nothin'. It's just I get asked that a lot." He tilted his chin up, thinking. "You ever think, if someone made a book or a movie or sommit about you, what they'd call it? I reckon they'd call mine 'Doctor Who'."

"I don't know that anyone would be interested enough in my boring old life to make a movie."

The throwaway comment made the Doctor blink and frown a little. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, I'm nothing special, is all." He shook his head and leaned forward a little.

"(Y/N), just your existing makes you special. Think of all the coincidences that led to you being here, today, right now. One atom had to hit another just right to cause a huge explosion. One rock had to get just big enough and be just far enough from this sun to support a few little puny shrubs and some fish, that had to survive long enough to evolve into apes, that had to get smart enough and lucky enough to evolve into people. And two of those people fought the odds of meeting each other, a one in a few billion chance, to come together and cause you to live on a little soggy island and sit here today chatting to me. You're made of stardust and happy chance, and if that doesn't make you special, then I dunno what does."

Before you could really even process what he just said, and close your gaping mouth, the bell over the cafe door tinkled, and the Doctor looked up to smile at someone. You glanced over your shoulder to see a pretty blonde girl motioning to him to come with her, apparently a bit panicked.

You turned back to see him standing, and blurted, "D'you have to go, Doctor?" You really didn't want him to. For some reason, it felt like you'd be saying goodbye to a good friend.

He smiled again and stuffed his hands in the pockets of that worn leather jacket. "Oh, I never stay in one place too long, (Y/N). And apparently," he nodded to the door with an amused smirk, "it's a bit urgent." He walked up beside you and put a hand on your shoulder. You put your hand over his.

"Do you do this all the time?"

"Have coffee with strangers?"

"No," you smiled, your voice oddly a little choked, "say amazing things to strangers and then just leave."

"Oh, that. Yeah. Yeah, I do." He winked and pulled a package, which looked much too big to fit, from his pocket and set it on the table beside you. "Happy Birthday, by the way, (Y/N)."

And with that, he was gone. You watched him meet up with the girl and walk down the street with her, your eyes not leaving him until they lost him around a corner.

An odd sound echoed through the street, and you frowned. Somehow, you knew it had to do with him. You picked up the package and opened it carefully.

It was a copy of your favorite book, first edition, autographed, and with a tiny note inside that only read, in cramped quick handwriting, "Hell of a time finding this and getting it sighed, you know. See you someday."