Finding Out On Your Own, a 10+11 Doctor Who fanfiction

Abandon Ship

The Doctor rolled his shoulders and fixed his bow tie as he walked along Earths, specifically, Glasgows pavements, stretching the aching muscles in his back. He had sat hunched over a book an old friend once gave to him- she was wonderful, very clever, very wise- for too long. He decided to take his time reading it for once. He looked around, mostly to free his neck from the stiff feeling he had aqcuired together with his aching back. Time was a strange concept to the Time Lord when it ticked by naturally, from second, to minute, to hour, to day and so forth, and he had absolutely no idea for how long he had been reading. Longer than humanly possible, he guessed, and smiled to himself.

"Complicated year, this one. Lots of time disturbance. Took a bit longer to land her here." He murmured quietly, to himself, as he had no other company to share his forever ongoing train of thought with, apart from a small fly, which flew straight by after no more than a second of paying attention. "I was-"

His voiced thoughts were disturbed as, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the trademark blue of his stolen ship's outer shell, standing on a different corner than where he had landed her. He looked up, fully taking in his surroundings, and especially the ship. He stepped towards the tall box, approaching it almost carefully.

"I didn't put you there, you old girl. Did you relocate? Why?" He said in the gentle voice reserved only for his oldest companion and scared children. He dragged his thumb, and then his forefinger along the wooden frame. He found something off about his old ship, and so, he studied the model and felt the wood carefully. Then, his eyes widened with realisation. He recoiled, looking appalled.

"I never- not now, not here- I- "

The oddly dressed man must have looked mad to the bypassing crowd, shaking his head in utter confusion, mumbling, rambling in a dazed manner, staring at a seemingly unimportant blue box and occassionally stroking it.

"I can't- This is my own timeline, that's-" He mumbled again, before shaking his head once more and warily taking out a plain, unmarked, silver key at the thick thread looped through it, and gingerly, with shaking hands, inserted it into the age-old lock of his age-old ship. He carefully turned it and pushed inside, leaving the door open a crack, allowing a thin line of sunlight to enter the dusty, messy console room he used to travel in, illuminating the tiny particles floating in the room.

There was nothing more urgent than to find out what caused him to be let back into his own timeline, so he dragged his fingers across the console and leaned himself back into the long-forgotten and positively battered jump seat he used to use, and waited.