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It was one hell of a day. The Doctor dropped off Clara at her apartment and went to unwind in one of the pubs he liked in the 23rd century. It’s the only place in the universe where he didn’t find their drinks revolting in this body.
“Another?” asked the bartender, for the fifth time.
“Yea. Why not.”
The Doctor sat at the table for a few more minutes until a man walked in that caught his attention. He stood out for some reason to the Doctor, which is strange as the man looked quite normal. Well, normalish, the outfit didn’t quite fit with the latest fashion on Earth but that hardly mattered to anyone.
The man was very pale and slightly shorter than the Doctor, by four centimeters or so. He looked to be in his late forties.
This man wore a black striped blazer atop of a white shirt that had a black ribbon tied around his neck. He wore black trousers, or they could have been a very dark blue, with very dark brown oxford shoes. His hair was black and slightly curly.
But what was most fascinating were his eyes. Well eye, as the left eye was hidden by a simple and plain black eye patch. Yet his right eye was almost gold in colour, yet not quite. The eye colour made the Doctor suspect that he wasn’t human but that wasn’t that uncommon during the century, or could be wearing contacts as well. That was the latest fashion apparently. The eye colour was very familiar, but he couldn’t pinpoint why.
The man sat himself at one of the corner tables and picked up the rather small menu.
The curiosity was practically strangling the Doctor. He stood up with his drink and approached this strange man.
The man looked up at the Doctor, since the man was just looming over him and not saying anything, just staring rather disturbingly.
“Uhh. Hello? How can I help you?” asked the man, his voice full of confusion.
The Doctor didn’t answer, he plonked down on the seat opposite this man very quickly, and kept staring at him. The man was taken aback.
“Do I know you?” asked the Doctor.
It took the man a moment to respond, he was rather surprised by the Doctor’s forwardness.
“Umm. I don’t think so. I never forget a face.” he replied.
“Well, that’s not very useful. I don’t think I have met you with this face. But you are very familiar to me, and I can’t pinpoint it. Which is very frustrating.” The Doctor rambled.
The man took several moments to process the Doctor’s gibberish. His mind makes connections and picks at different aspects of the Doctor's words, before he comes to one conclusion.
“Are you the Doctor?” he enquired, something changed in his demeanor. He almost seems to have dropped his guard
“Yes. Yes I am. But who are you.” returned the Doctor.
“I’m- ” the man was cut off as the waiter approached to enquire what they wanted. The man’s attention switched like a light switch from the Doctor to the waiter.
“Oh. I would like some crepes, dear. With fruit tea please.” the man replied with a smile at the waiter.
The Doctor ignored the interaction and jumped back into the interrogation, if it could be called that.
“You were saying?”
The man gave him a confused look as he closed the menu and put it aside. It took him a second to remember what was going on.
“Ah yes, I forgot to introduce myself. My name’s James. It’s nice to meet you Doctor.” he spoke with a small smile on his face, as the Doctor took a moment to process this and try to remember a man named James.
Meanwhile, James’ crepes and tea arrived. And he was very happy to indulge in them and ignore the Doctor.
Several minutes passed before anyone spoke again.
“You seem troubled Doctor.” James pointed out.
“Long day.” was the Doctor’s reply.
“May I enquire as to what has happened, perhaps it will ease your troubles.” offered James.
For the next half hour, the Doctor rambled about the adventure he had with Clara whilst James ate his crepes and then chocolate cake that he ordered soon after finishing his crepes. At some point, James also took out an envelope from his blazer, it was quite bulky. In addition those types of envelopes have been discontinued over two centuries ago, after the entire world switched to digital means. The Doctor ,however, didn’t notice. He was too absorbed in his recount of the events.
“-and then we were surrounded by Daleks. Those bastards. They never give up do they?” The Doctor’s anger began to emerge as he spoke about the Daleks.
It made James pause mid sip of his tea.
“And then, despite the Dalek being a pain in the ass. The princess wouldn’t stop flirting with me and implying what beautiful children we would make together.” some disgust and fear creeped into the Doctor’s words as he thought about it.
The Doctor then glanced at James, noticing his sudden stillness and lack of small comments.
“Are you alright?”
James cleared his throat and put the tea down before he spoke. “Yes. Totally fine.”
Doctor didn’t believe him, but decided to drop the subject but not before James spoke up again.
“So, you are not a fan of children then?” asked James and the Doctor gave him almost a terrified look.
“No. Not the biggest. Children are terrifying. Very imaginative but very terrifying.”
“You don’t want children then?”
“No, I don’t. With the life I live now. I don’t think it’s very suited for children. Besides I don’t want any little terrors destroying my Tardis.”
The Doctor was very cautious with his words despite being quite wound up, as he felt like he was getting somewhere finally. Perhaps closer to the mystery of who this man is.
“You really seem to hate the Daleks.” commented James completely changing the topic.
Fuelling the fires with his comment. The Doctor went off on a rant about the Dalek’s, not noticing the almost hurt expression hidden in that golden eye, which occasionally would glance at the envelope on the table.
“So you don’t think that Daleks are capable of change? Of being good?”
“Well obviously not. It’s impossible for a Dalek to be good. If it’s suddenly good then there is something wrong with it. Daleks are incapable of change or goodness. They are full of hate and destruction.”
“You sound so sure Doctor. Not even giving them a chance.”
“I have met many Dalek in my time, James. None of them were good. If they were good then there was a malfunction.”
“Not a single one?”
“No.”
Doctor and James looked eyes for several moments, something seemed to pass between them that the Doctor was oblivious to, before James’ gaze dropped down to the envelope which drew the Doctor’s gaze as well. Noticing it for the first time.
James looked at it for several long moments, thinking. He then took the envelope and put it back into his inside blazer pocket but not before the Doctor noticed that it was addressed to ‘ The Doctor with a big blue box’.
“That letter was addressed to me.”
“Yes it is.” James sounded subdude.
“Who is it from?”
“One of your associates. But it doesn’t matter anymore.” James began to stand.
“Wait!”
James paused, and looked directly into the Doctor’s eyes.
“Why doesn’t it matter anymore? Why not just give it to me?”
There was a long pause and a tense silence between the two of them. Until the dam broke.
“Because you are clearly not the man she thought you to be. I have heard so many wonderful things about you, so many stories about the good Doctor. A man flying around in his blue box, saving civilizations, not caring who they are with no exceptions. Trying to spread peace across the universe.” He paused. “But clearly there are exceptions. There’s hatred. And I doubt the Dalek’s are the only race affected by your bias.”
The Doctor was taken aback by his words.
“Would you help a Dalek, Doctor. If you were given a choice where one must die. Would you save an evil human or a good Dalek.?”
“James. There are no good Daleks.”
Silence reigned between the two of them.
“Then I have my answer.” He stood up and began to walk away.
“James, wait.” The Doctor stood up and followed James to the exit.
James spun around to face the Doctor, his features were void of any emotion.
“Your name is not James, is it.” the Doctor guessed.
“No. it’s not.” The man confirmed.
“It’s Sec. Goodbye Doctor.” With that he spun around and left the pub.
When the Doctor was outside, Sec was nowhere to be seen.