Power of Words

Chapter 11: Left in Safe Hands

      When I woke up, my first thought was not knowing where I was. Well, actually it was a close second to, 'I'm in a bed. This is really comfy!' I rolled to my left to see the Doctor sitting in a chair toying with his sonic screwdriver.

     With a high pitched wail of the sonic want came the pounding in my head again. I groaned softly and the Doctor's head shot up like a bullet. The pounding... the dizziness... it all came back to me like a bucket of water getting dumped on my head--quick and only dribbling on the last few drops.

      "How did you do that?" I asked, referring to his little Time Lord sleep trick. The Doctor either didn't catch on or didn't want me to know. I wasn't sure which.

      "What, this?" he made the screwdriver squeal at a higher frequency. I groaned as my head thumped harder and faster like an animal eager to get out of its' cage.

      "Stop it. Stop... it..." I said. If I had been feeling better, I might have chuckled at the (really bad) Scottish accent that I said that in. It almost resembled Sylvester McCoy in the Doctor Who movie.

    The room was silent a second later. The Doctor tucked the blue tipped stick into his jacket and folded his hands on his lap. I slowly sat up a bit and examined my surroundings. I found that I was in my bedroom inside my tiny apartment. The walls were plastered with posters of my favourite shows and movies. The Doctor followed my gaze as it travelled from a poster of the first 11 Doctors (excluding the War Doctor and metacrisis Doctor) to a poster advertising the third season of BBC's Sherlock, one for Cirque de Soliel's Kooza and another for Maury Yeston's Nine. At least thirty sticky notes were stuck to a cork board reminding me of everything from plot points, twists and plot bunnies for my stories as well as grocery lists and awesome dreams that I wanted to twist into stories somehow. A small bookshelf above my bed was lined with fantasy books, a couple old mystery novels and a few random ones I picked up for research

      The Doctor looked back at the Doctor Who poster, staring at it with interest. He pointed at Matt Smith who played the next version or regeneration of the Doctor.

     "So that is the next me, eh?" he said conversationally, "Not that I need to know, but what am I like?"

      "Spoilers." I told him, quoting the show. He tapped the toe of his red converse on the floor. The tenth Doctor had two similar outfits for travelling in time. One for when he was travelling in the past or present, which consisted of a blue pinstriped suit and red converse. The other for travelling into the future which was a brown suit and tan converse.

     He hadn't changed outfits from when I saw him in the Faerie Council, but it did make me curious.

     "What year is it for the Faerie Council, or... when are they in time?" I tried to use the right terminology. But saying 'when are we' instead of 'where are we' is more of a challenge than it appears to be on British television. British people make it look so simple! Sherlock made his deductions sound like child's play. I think I should just move to England and become British. Would that make me smarter? I hoped so. But that would take some getting used to. I mean, calling the bathroom just the toilet. Pants were trousers and underwear were pants. Pop and soda was called fizzy. Wasn't that sort of obvious? Pop is fizzy? Fizzy pop? And then there was tea. So yummy. And Cardiff. So many good shows were filmed in Cardiff. But enough before I start to fan-girl. Was I obsessed with Britain? I hoped not....

     "Wellll.... there isn't really time in the Council. Kind of like Gallifrey." For a second he got a distant look in his eyes at the mention of his home planet. I was so tempted to comfort him but... spoilers! But that distant look didn't last for long. He continued,  "They both are on a system called Inner Time. Basically they are inside their own little bubble of time--and thus how Time Lords were able to create TARDISes. Everywhere else in the universe--welll, most of the universe--is on the Outer Time system where everyone has their own time units. These units often have a real pattern based on things like weather, light, planet rotation and sleeping patterns of the native species. Planets on Inner Time have no units of time. They often borrow from other planets terminology, like hours, days and years from Earth. Or sekoj, Ihnikos and Wronlk from Saerophilis." I nodded slowly, somehow understanding this space/time babble through my headache, which was just getting worse. As I listened to the Doctor I massaged my temples gently.