The Lucky Life Of None (11th DoctorxReader)

Xavier's House

You were back.

The muggy darkness that you'd run through to get to the safety you so desperately thought you deserved. Sitting on a large rock and scraping the bottom of your discarded shoes of the mud they'd accumulated upon walking up the shore, you looked up at the plateau of land you'd escaped from, the people on it milling about like ants, still trying to find you. It was a menacing drop from the top to the teal-pearlescent waters below, but you were sturdy, and desperate. You swam for miles- certainly more than you'd ever had to before- but it was a relatively short canal from there to this heap. You were grateful you'd ended up on this side of the island, for the plateau was isolated by a semi-circular piece of land, that was also semi-symmetrical. Had you been on the other side, you definitely would have drowned or been eaten by something much larger than yourself. You weren't native to this planet by any stretch, but you'd definitely seen quite a few of its land beasts and preferred not to think of how fearsome something from its watery depths would be.

You searched around yourself for something- anything to eat. You hadn't a chance to eat before those infuriatingly self-righteous villagers had declared war on you. The land you'd stumbled onto looked desolate at best. No meat for you tonight, perhaps unless you went out to hunt for it. You simply didn't have the energy for that. Not after your impromptu marathon. You had to rest.

As you returned your shoes to the ground and moved to find more shelter, you heard something snap behind you. Whether a twig, a rock, or anything else entirely, it alerted you to life. You felt a tug at the corners of your mouth. How fortuitous.

You turned quickly on your heel and saw a human girl. A very familiar looking human girl, in front of the big blue monstrosity you knew as a sign of your impending victory.

"I want to help you" She spoke, as if afraid you might spook if she wasn't careful to keep her voice down. May the universe bless this child- she'd already helped you more than she knew. "But first, I need to know what you did." She added calmly. She looked like she understood far too much of your situation. Perhaps you should have been more careful broadcasting your-

"That wasn't a question. Speak, or I will be one angry person." Oh, this was just too much. There he was in the flesh! He sounded a bit different than when you'd last heard him speak, but it didn't matter. As the girl was foolishly within your arms reach, you snatched her and turned to the foolish timelord with your hand on her neck.

"You are no person." Was the last thing you got out before you woke up in a haze. You hadn't gotten that dream in a while. You wondered what it could mean. It had to mean something that you kept seeing the Doctor in your dreams and that in this one, you'd seen him very angry and disheveled. Never mind everything else about the situation.

You looked around. You weren't sure where you were anymore. This room was as foreign to you as the last. You were in a soft bed, covered in a warm blanket with a sort of quilted texture. The surrounding area was something of a controlled mess with books stacked in tall piles everywhere they could fit, a bookshelf stuffed to the brim with even more; tomes, you could tell most were. Trinkets upon trinkets in every shape, color, and size glittered and caught your eye. Some moved, which alarmed you the tiniest bit, and others stared at you with eyes they shouldn't have had. Horns, bones, and all manner of things made from them littered most of the surfaces you could see, and you could make out markings in an elaborate circle language on what seemed like maps and globes laid out just about everywhere else.

Looking to your side, you saw a single stuffed animal which graced the bedside table next to you as the only thing on it. You briefly wondered what made it so special. It stared up at the ceiling with a sewn smile, which seemed unnatural for whatever cat-like creature it was made to look like, but it certainly wasn't the weirdest or most unnatural thing in the room. Without a thought, you snatched it and hugged it tightly to your body, laying back down in the very comfortable bed. Xavier was the most familiar thing to you in this room, and the best line of defense you had from all the things in it that seemed like they were watching you. Looking up, you'd wondered how the ceiling had escaped your scouring eyes before. It was beautiful- and every bit as dysfunctional as the rest of the room. More trinkets, still, graced the surface, and fell down in strings above the bed. Your mind immediately compared them to the little string thingies that baby cribs always had, to keep their attention until they fell asleep. Whoever this room belonged to was a child on the inside. Or outside, depending, but you couldn't blame them. You also had stuff on your ceiling at your apartment- given they were pictures of you and others at events and places you wanted to remember. It was similar enough.

Soon, you heard footsteps coming down whatever hallway this room was in and turned over, shutting your eyes tight and squeezing Xavier even tighter. You realized you'd automatically assumed the cat's name was Xavier, but that was less important than whoever was coming thinking that you were asleep.

The door opened, and whoever it was halted at the door for a moment, and then proceeded into the room towards you. You tried to look as natural as possible. Your captor stopped right above you and within the moment, you felt the blanket come back up over your arms. The person huffed and sat on the bed next to you. They pulled strands of hair out of your face.

"What's this about, old girl? You told me she was awake." You immediately jumped from your sleeping position and grabbed onto the Doctor as tight as your arms would allow, thoroughly shocking the Doctor and causing the two of you to fall over in the opposite direction. He let out a surprised chuckle and reached a hand onto your head. "And what's this?"

"Doctor, I thought-" You didn't know what you thought. "The dream-" You continued in fragments since you couldn't find whole sentences yet. "You found me." You settled on. He chuckled once more.

"Of course I did. Ye ol' spaceship isn't that mean, to hide you away from me while you're sleeping." So, you were still in the TARDIS. That made more sense than anything you'd come up with in your time alone. You looked around again.

"Then this is..."

"Sorry." The Doctor sounded embarrassed. You looked down at him, witnessing his controlled discomfort as he flushed and his eyes scanned the room for anything but your face. "You fell asleep, and I would've taken you home, but I didn't know where you live, and you've never told me, but I couldn't just wake you up to ask you something so trivial- you looked so peaceful, so I figured a room here would do. It's the safest place in the universe, really, and I didn't want you too far from me, so I told the TARDIS to summon the closest room and tell me when you'd woken up so that I could explain. I didn't mean to scare you, I just thought... I don't know what I thought, really." He ranted. Your lips formed a small smile before your brain could tell them not to, and you carefully crafted a seated position. The Doctor remained prone, watching you as if you would explode if he'd said the wrong thing.

"Did you rehearse that?" You asked him slyly. It was obvious that he had, but instead of acknowledging your question, he plucked Xavier from where he'd been forgotten at his side and handed him to you.

"Xavier." He pointed to him.

"So, his name is Xavier!" You confirmed.

"You got that, huh?" He rose from the bed's surface only to fall back down onto it exhaustedly. "Telepathic toys will do that, I suppose."

"Wait." You held the cat at arms-length and examined him. "Xavier is telepathic? But..." Once again, you lost your words. You blamed it on your post-sleepy brain. The Doctor glanced in your direction before allowing his eyes to lock onto the strings of trinkets on the ceiling.

"This whole ship's telepathic, you know." He reminded you. "She stole you my hot cocoa, stole you my clothes, and moved three entire rooms to suit your leisure. I'm an alien with two hearts and a telepathic spaceship that's bigger on the inside. There's a zoo on this ship with animals like Laufey in it. How on Zog has the thought of a stuffed toy having one telepathic capability got you defeated so easily?" His words were lazy and slow the closer he got to the end of his spiel. He was falling asleep.

"Doctor, if I slept here, where did you sleep last night?" You had so many more questions, like "What is Xavier to you, and what makes him telepathic?" "What is all of this stuff in your room, and why is half of it always watching us?" "Did you say you have two hearts?!" "Why is Xavier named something so plainly human sounding?" "What makes the TARDIS the safest place in the universe-or were you just saying that to prove your point?" But "Where did you sleep?" was easily the most relevant.

"I didn't." Was the only response you were honored with before he was out cold. You sighed and laid yourself out next to him with your head in your palm. You pushed some stray strands of hair out of the Doctor's face, as he had done to you- but his hair was so unbelievably soft. So unbelievably soft and alien. You barely realized you were still knuckle-deep in it until you were fighting a yawn and you needed your hand to somehow win that fight. You surmised that the bed must have had some sleep- inducing quality before you started to doze for the second time on this ship. You frowned. Why would the Doctor have something like this unless he had trouble sleeping?

"TARDIS" You drawled. "Wake us up before too long." You had no idea what you meant by that, but she hummed brightly in some form of response. You had no idea what she said either.