Chase The Wind: Doctor Who/Studio C [Book 1]

The Great Companion Swap of 2016

The Great Companion Swap of 2016

(Original Interlude)

Three days.

Three agonizing days.

The reality had settled over Matt when Mallory hadn't come to work the morning after the Racnoss. She'd gone with the Doctor. She had to have.

And it hurt. Oh, it stung.

He missed her like he would miss a limb, but that wasn't the only problem. It was that she'd left without a goodbye, that she'd been so quick to abandon a life he thought she loved.

It was that she had been so quick to abandon him.

He still cared enough to cover her sudden absence, even if he wasn't entirely sure he should. She had left them in a bit of a predicament after all, with Christmas marching ever closer and them unable to work on the sketches she was in. He was more than a little upset with her.

But above it all, the pain and the anger and the betrayal, he loved her with every fiber of his being.

So he made excuses for her, told the rest of the cast that something had come up and she'd had to take a trip. Matt was quite certain some of them saw through it, that they knew he knew the truth and he wasn't telling them, but no one pushed.

And after three full days, on the morning of the fourth, he heard the sound of the TARDIS.

He made some poor excuse to Adam and Jason, with whom he'd been deep in conversation, before leaving the studio. He wanted to see Mallory—was rather desperate to see Mallory, if he admitted it to himself—but there was something else he had to do first.

Despite his resolve, he couldn't help but hope he'd run into her, but it had taken him a few minutes to locate the TARDIS, and she must have taken a different route then he had because both she and the Doctor were long gone by the time he found the blue box.

He put his hand to the wood, warm beneath his fingertips. After a moment he tried to doors, but they were locked shut, and he chose to take that as a good sign; hopefully that meant the Doctor and Mallory weren't inside, but out and about and would have to come back eventually.

So Matt turned around, leaned back against the doors, and waited.

He had a surprisingly short wait—after less than ten minutes he spotted the Doctor, rounding the corner into the alley the TARDIS was parked in.

He thought to say something funny or clever, but nothing presented itself. Instead the words that came past his lips were a flat, "She went with you."

"Yes."

There was no threat or menace in the Time Lord's voice. Matt almost wanted there to be, so he could have something tangible to fight against.

"She came of her own free will," the Doctor added.

He knew that. "It's been three days," he said instead.

"No it hasn't," the Doctor said dismissively, but after a moment his eyes widened. "Has it?"

"Yes. Three. It's the number after two, before four, and entirely too many days for someone to disappear without a word and have it not be suspicious," Matt replied scathingly.

The Doctor gestured him away from the TARDIS doors and he made himself oblige after a moment, but determinedly followed the Time Lord inside once the doors were open.