Wolves by Selena Gomez & Marshmello

***

I stared across the crowded hallway tunnel, a goofy grin plastered all over my face.

Clutching my soggy textbooks to my chest with one arm, I absently fingered the ends of my short auburn hair. A tinny voice was audible in my left ear - it took me a moment to realize I still had one earbud in. I quickly snapped out of it, adjusting the music volume, and glanced down at the tiled floor one last time to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything.

Nope - one last scrap of paper. I bent to scoop it up, then noticed that it wasn't mine. Various circles and cryptic designs covered both sides of the notepaper.

"Wait," I mumbled, turning the paper over and over in my fingers. Then, louder: "Wait!"

My head shot up, searching for the man's figure in the steady stream of students. How had he disappeared so fast?

I found myself running, ducking around people in my sudden dash through the tunnel. The hallway curved upwards, rising to ground level, and I darted around the corner.

There he was, head bent over something in his hand as he pushed through a door off the main hallway.

"Doctor, wait!" I clutched my books tighter and sped up, bursting through the door only seconds later.

"Oh my gosh," I breathed, stopping dead just over the threshold.

At the bottom of the stairwell, just a few metres in front of me, rested a blue police telephone box. The man was standing in front of it, fumbling with the lock. He threw a glance over his shoulder when he heard the door open, but quickly turned back.

My mouth hung open. "You have the TARDIS!"

His head jerked up as he whirled back to face me, nearly dropping his key. "What did you say?"

"You forgot this." I stepped closer, barely looking at the guy as I pushed the crumpled note into his chest. My attention was focused solely on the tall wooden box behind him. "Oh, wow, it's like a perfect replica - the handles are even a bit off-centre. How did you make this? It's amazing!"

"The handles are not off-centre—" He stopped, turning to stand protectively between me and the police box. Frowning at the note in his hand, he shoved it into a pocket and closed his fingers around the key again. "Sorry. I don't have time for this."

"You've got all the time in the universe," I exclaimed, still drinking in the sight - the Doctor, leaning against his TARDIS like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"Actually, I don't." His entire demeanour had changed from just a minute ago. Now his eyes were dark, a fierce emotion etched into the line of his jaw as though it was all he could do to appear under control.

He shook his head. "I'm in a hurry. Also, you might want to stand back." And with that, he had slipped inside the blue box.

I made a face at the closed door. It looked ridiculously out of place here in the stairwell, sitting in the tunnels under my university. Why that guy would choose to store it here of all places - I tilted my head, wondering.

If he was just going to a costume party, he seemed ridiculously over-prepared. Had the box been some kind of woodworking project? Was this all an elaborate prank or some advertisement? Maybe I wasn't supposed to have followed him - had I interrupted somehow before the preparation was complete?

He was probably waiting for me to leave. I sighed and stepped back toward the stairs, throwing one last glance at the perfect replica of the spaceship from Doctor Who.

That's when it started making noise.

I froze in shock. The light on the top of the police box was flashing, and the sound of the TARDIS dematerializing filled my ears, echoing up the stairwell.

Those are some awesome special effects, I thought vaguely.

Then the box began to disappear.

A surge of panic rose in my chest. Before I could have a conscious thought, I was racing over to the fading image, yelling the only word I could summon. "Doctor! Doctor, wait!"

It was too late - the sound was fading, and I could barely make out the lines of the box. I let out another yell of frustration, my mind still struggling to catch up. It was totally impossible. I was imagining things. And yet...

"That just happened," I muttered, squeezing my eyes shut. Maybe when I opened them again—

And there it was.

Sitting in the exact spot I'd seen it disappear from. I blinked again, and it didn't move. My jaw hit the floor. Was I going crazy?

The door creaked open, and there he stood. One hand shoved into his pocket, the other against the inside of the doorway.

"Blimey, you can shout," he said.

"You're kidding me." I stared as though seeing him for the first time. "You have got to be kidding me."

"About the shouting? No, I—"

I lunged forward, pushing past him through the doorway. The second I was inside, I'm pretty sure I stopped breathing.

It wasn't just a wooden box.

A sourceless golden light filled the circular room. I could see everything - just like I'd imagined it, like I'd seen it on the screen, and yet so much more real. Curved bronze columns arched on either side of the catwalk that led to the centre console. The clear blue-green tube in the middle thrummed steadily, in tune with the sighing pulse of the TARDIS. I stepped slowly toward the centre, as though it all might disappear if I made any sudden moves.

"It's not polite to enter without being invited, you know," came a voice from behind me. The spell was broken. I turned around.

"This is the TARDIS," I managed, finally remembering how to breathe.

"Yeah, who told you that?" He released the door, a strange frown etched into his features. "You act like you know me."

I hardly registered his question. "You're the Doctor."

"Yes."

"And... you're real."

He didn't respond, still studying me like I was the alien.

I grinned weakly. "It's bigger on the inside."

"Is it?" His expression didn't change.

"Oh, come on. That was supposed to be funny."

"Everyone says that."

"I know."

"You seem to know a lot about me." The Doctor folded his arms, penetrating gaze still fixed on my face. "Are you with Torchwood, then?"

"No," I started. "It's just that there's..."

"There's what?"

I shook my head helplessly. "There's a TV show. You're on a TV show, and you fly around through space and time in the TARDIS with your companions, and a lot of things attack you but you usually get out of it, save the universe and that sort of thing. There, I said it. I sound absolutely crazy."

There was a long silence.

"A TV show," he repeated.

I realized how ridiculous this was. He was fictional. The Doctor was a character in a TV show. It was nothing short of insanity to claim anything more. And yet there he stood in front of me, large as life, both of us inside a ship that could travel through all of time and space.

I moaned. "This makes no sense. I'm imagining things. No, I can't be. We have a TV show about you. And you're real. But you can't have done all that stuff on the show. We've never been attacked by aliens. Someone would remember that, wouldn't they? This is like... some crazy parallel universe thing going on here."

Something dawned behind the Doctor's expression. Instantly he was pushing past me, circling the centre console, flipping switches and stopping in front of the display screen.

"It can't be," he was muttering. "But that would mean..."

I followed him, realizing I was still holding my school stuff. Dropping it all on a ledge, I came up behind him. "Okay but are you being serious? Did you come from a parallel universe? I mean that would explain a lot."

"What do you know?" he asked suddenly, jabbing at a cluster of buttons beneath the screen. "How much do you know about me?"

Surprised, I hesitated. "From the show? Well, I haven't seen any of the classic stuff - I started with Nine and I'm only part way into the fourth series."

His tone was dark. "Just tell me everything you can."

"Okay... the basics. You're a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who calls himself the Doctor. You've got the TARDIS - this thing - that can travel anywhere in time and space. Aliens are living pretty much everywhere in the galaxy and we don't know it. For some reason you like Earth and you keep taking humans along with you in your ship. There was a Time War and all of the Time Lords and the Daleks died, except for the Daleks. And you. And that other Time Lord dude - the Master. Anyway, after the time war you came to London and found this chick named Rose. She came along with you on a bunch of fabulous adventures and you fell in love. I totally ship you guys. But then she got trapped..." I trailed off. "Wait. You said you hadn't met Donna yet. Does that mean you're still with Rose? Where - I mean when - are you?"

At the beginning of my spiel, the Doctor had been tapping keys with inhuman speed. Slowly, he had stopped paying attention to what he was doing, by the end staring unseeing at the monitor. His knuckles were white, gripping the edge of the console as though he could be flung off at any moment into the Void.

"Um, are you okay?" I tilted my head, trying to make out his expression. "I can stop. Did I say too much? Oh, I'm sorry."

"Rose is trapped..." he murmured. "She's trapped in a parallel universe."

The Doctor slowly straightened, taking a step away from the console as a red alert appeared on the screen. He slid both hands into his pockets.

"And so am I."

***

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