"Please?"
"Alright, here you go, then," the Doctor relented. He affably shed a few coins into the waiting hands. With an eager grin the boy turned and dashed off, his peasant rags flapping behind him, darting around the legs of passersby -- under the legs of passersby, too? The Doctor looked after him with a nostalgic smile. He had plenty of money, anyway, and memories of being a poor city boy himself. He jerked aside to allow a couple of overweight women to toddle past -- they looked at him in disgust and muttered rude things to each other -- and started along the crowded street, his coat flapping behind him.
Crowds traversed the streets of the city of Agartha. Ten went with an eye for everything he could see. It had been a long time since he'd visited, after all, and he'd never seen this particular city -- even with over nine hundred years of space travel under his belt. Merry travelers marched the street, merry shoppers went in and out of stores, and vendors called merry things. Specks of civilization passed by him, jostling him and crowding him and laughing and crying. It always gave the Doctor a sense of awe to realize that these were all people -- living, breathing, walking, talking consciousnesses -- and an even greater feeling to realize that if he wanted to he could access every particle of these people's lives -- the good and the bad moments, the good and the bad people. Just one perk of being a time traveler. He could flit along, all while tides turned and civilizations rose and people lived and died, and none of them would be any the wiser that he was different.
Traveling alone always made the Doctor more thoughtful.
The TARDIS was parked a few blocks back, a little grumpy -- they hadn't spent much quality time lately. But she would be fine, the Doctor mused to himself. Nobody could get into the box, without a key.
The Doctor was crowded against the side of the street, where a few dingy booths sat. He approached a vendor. "Excuse me sir, what are you selling?"
The grubby-aproned, fat-faced man, who looked like he'd just had week-old cheese shoved under his nose, jerked a thumb. "Look at the sign."
It was illegible. The Doctor turned back to the vendor and smiled briefly before retreating back into the crowd.
He stood for a moment, to breathe in the sights and sounds, the sweet air -- well, it was really fairly smoky, but Agartha was a smoky city -- and relaxed briefly. Then he felt a hand dig into his pocket and turned to see a green-haired girl off like a shot!
Ten plunged his hands into his pocket and felt around rapidly before looking after her, distraught! She had his key! He -- needed that key! It was his key -- the TARDIS key! "Hey, hey you -- get back here!" And he was off in pursuit. Her green hair was whisking around a knot of white-haired men dressed all in black. The Doctor squeezed through.
"Excuse me, pardon me --"
They jostled aside. The crowd on the other side seemed to automatically part to let Ten through, but when he stood, the wind whisking his fantastic hair, on the other side of the mass, the street looked empty. She was gone. A black-horned, red-skinned alien bonked into him, then a skinny pair of teenage boys carrying hamburgers on the other side. The Doctor managed to get free of them and looked searchingly back and forth along the street. A bin was rattling at one end, at the mouth of a narrow, dirty side street. It was the best lead he had, so he hurried over to it. In the darkness a tiny girl's figure was pelting away from him.
"Oi! Get back here!" Cursing inwardly, the Doctor tried to hurdle the bin and crashed into the narrow space between two menacingly dark buildings. Dust plumed up around him and he tripped a little before he had to be off again, in hot pursuit. The narrow street split at T where it met a stone brick wall. At random the Doctor chose left and spiraled awkwardly around the corner before regaining his balance. Water showered down from above him, and he barely managed to dodge. Looking up he saw a startled housewife holding an overturned bucket in her hands, staring down from the roof. What was in that pail? He shot down the shadow-enveloped street, coat flapping in his wake. The narrow sidestreet split off into a T again and the Doctor looked both ways. One passage was merely a gap onto another busy main street. The Doctor bet that was the way she had gone and turned to face it hopelessly. He needed that key -- it would be a pain to get it back -- it was his only way into the TARDIS --
YOU ARE READING
Night and the Doctor
Fanfiction"And Doctor Song? In prison all her days?" "All her days, yes. All her nights . . . well, that's between her and me, eh?" It's a tale as old as time. The adventures of River Song and her Doctor, or of the Doctor and his Song, traveling through time...
