Fixed in Time (Doctor Who Fanfiction)

Changing Times

1p2

"Susan. Hello!" The Doctor greeted me happily, and I stared at him, chest heaving in panic. He had a hint of a Scottish accent, and a powerful voice. Suddenly his eyebrows knitted. "Susan? What's wrong?" I started to back away, stunned. Suddenly a thought seemed to strike him and he smacked his forehead. "Oh, right, 1963! It's okay, I can explain!"

My mind was overwhelmed by now and I couldn't stand it any longer; I bolted.

"Susan!" I heard him yell after me, but
I wasn't turning back. You see, I wasn't upset because he'd regenerated, and his body was different. No, I was upset because of his eyes. In them I'd seen many things. I saw the calculating mind of a scientist, the ideals of the boy I'd known long ago, the compassion and fondness for all beings he'd always harbored, and I'd seen the ancient experience of a time lord far older than the Doctor I'd last met. Not only had he left me without a goodbye, the Doctor seemed to have barely even thought of me, and had gone through many incarnations before he came back. And he hadn't even come back for me, he'd come back for whatever alien was here. It made me feel betrayed and useless, worse than the way I'd felt as a kid with a grandmother who hated me and a mother who was never around.

Being one of my rare days off, the rest of the morning was filled with feeling horrible. First I tried to complete a paper for university and got about halfway through before giving up. I went out into my combined kitchen and living room and poured myself a cup of tea to calm myself down. I looked into the information I'd collected over the past weeks about the alien activity in the area, and drew some conclusions. One, there was more than one alien and more than one group of them, two their spaceship had travelled a considerable distance and had time travel abilities and thirdly the aliens were encased in metal machines with considerable technology and firepower. And they were interested in earth. Great.

I'd managed to get a very small sample of this creature's outer shell, whilst scouting the area already affected by the creatures, and after running some tests I'd devised it's strength and properties. I knew what level of firepower would be needed to penetrate the poly carbide armour of the creatures. And, knowing the Doctor's dislike of weaponry and the army's limited range of weapons, these creatures would probably not be able to be beaten if things went as they currently were. So I decided to make myself useful, and set about writing a list of things and drawing plans for a weapon with which to attack these creatures, if needed.

It hadn't taken me long to achieve all this, and when I finished I headed to the military base the army had established in Shoreditch. I noticed many people looking fearfully about as I crossed the town, and it proved the need for the weapons I'd devised. Whoever these aliens were, they were dangerous beyond measure.

Soldiers stopped me at the door, but I quickly stated I was a friend of the Doctor's and they let me in. As I was escorted through a hallway to the headquarters of the temporary base, I realised how influential the Doctor's name was already. Then I arrived in the room, where a brown haired female scientist and her young blonde assistant were deep in conversation as they stood perusing the items on the table. They had scanning equipment, weapons and planning boards. I could tell they'd been investigating this as long as me.

They looked up as I walked over.

"Hello, who's this?" The older woman addressed the soldier who'd brought me in.

"Susan Coche, friend of the Doctor's." the soldier replied. "Says she has something to assist us in our fight with the Daleks."

Daleks, so that's what they were called.

"Alright then." The woman continued and then addressed me. "I'm professor Rachel Jensen. What is it you have for us?"

I opened my bag and pulled out the plans I'd drawn up, along with the description and list of materials, and a hypothesis to support the research I'd done. Taking the papers from me, Rachel slipped on glasses and read over all my work, widening her eyes and making impressed hums as she went through it. Her assistant introduced herself as Allison while we waited for her boss to finish and asked how I knew the Doctor.