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Sansa Stark considers herself to be a relatively sane human being. She attends her normal everyday job, takes the normal everyday underground tube (which departs on weekdays at 8.26 am) and back to her normal everyday home. But the world she knows is so microscopically small in comparison to the rest of the universe, and space, and the millions of incomprehensible realms amongst them.
She, however, is not aware of this and the great adventures that lay beyond. What she is aware of is the look Mr Baelish is giving her across the office, with a smile stretching underneath his whiskers as he made his way towards her desk. She is also promptly aware of the overwhelming urge to hurl herself through the fourth floor office window than engage any sort of interaction with him.
“Miss Stark.” He raised his hand, skimming against the surface of her desk and pausing to toy with one of her pens. “Are you doing well?” He always sounded so secretive and quiet, as if he were exchanging some scheme with her. Sansa didn’t like it because she felt it gained the wrong attention from people in the office and she knew how it looked, a superior blatantly showing favour towards her. She just wants to get up and scream: “I’M NOT INTERESTED IN THIS MAN. PLEASE I JUST NEED EVERYONE IN THE OFFICE TO LIKE ME.”
She nods. She is doing well. Only half a lie.
There is a slight pause before the hand toying with the pen disappears and he retreats.
She makes eye contact with Shae located in the far corner, who mouths something animatedly. She faintly reads the words “creepy” and “duck”, the latter seeming oddly out of context from her often-colourful vocabulary. Perhaps it wasn’t “duck”.
What did she really want? A lot of things. None included working in an office for the rest of her life. She had been ambitious, especially when she was younger. Naïve and full of hope… stupid. Now she sat outside by herself in the cold, staring thoughtfully at her lunch and how slowly she could possibly eat the pathetic looking ham sandwich. She liked the winter, the frosted leaves and small dusting of ice that reminded her of her annoying sister who insisted on having “ice duels” (which are not as fun as they sound… but definitely as painful), the cold breeze brushing against her face… her hair being blown from against her shoulders… her ham sandwich flying from her hand…
“What-“ A piece of ham slapped her face as the gust of frozen air continued rhythmically with an odd sound of mechanical whirring.
Her immediate thought was: why is everything so dark?
Explanation: her eyes had instinctively shut themselves from the burst of brightness and, additionally, the fear that another stray piece of ham might hit her again.
Once she had opened her eyes, her next thought was: what on Earth is a blue police box doing in front of her when it hadn’t been there just a few moments ago?
Explanation: not a clue.
Sansa jumped back as the door burst open rather dramatically, revealing… a blurry shape. Her eyes were still trying to adjust from the brightness and how tight she had shut them without even being aware of it. The blurry figure stood there and then it was gone.
“Hello there.” A melodic voice greeted, sounding so clear and close as if it was being whispered right to her ear.
Sansa shrieked upon turning and seeing that what was the blurry figure but is now a clear shape of a person was whispering to her ear.
“What is wrong with you?!” She spat angrily. In her rage she had a moment to realise that the person was a woman. A beautiful woman. With waves of shiny brown hair that cascaded past her shoulders and an otherworldly smile as if in slow motion. Then she was speaking words from her mouth and everything was back to its normal speed again.
“I’m The Doctor!”
“The what?”
“I’m The Doctor!” She repeated again with the same level of ridiculous enthusiasm, as if expecting a different response.
“I heard you!”
“Then I don’t understand why you asked.”
Sansa huffed in exasperation, for some reason she was thinking of her pathetic ham sandwich, which now lay disassembled even more pathetically on the pavement.
“My name is Sansa.” She whispers quietly, both for feeling some guilt for her (completely justified) outburst and as an attempt to fill the tense pause.
“I’m sorry about your sandwich.” The woman frowned, sitting right next to her on the bench. The silence seemed only awkward to Sansa, who is unable to do anything else other than watch the strange woman hum a tune while dangling her feet.
In front of them, the blue box stood with no explanation. From where she sat, she could swear there were small wisps of smoke coming from underneath the door. Sansa can feel the scales working in her brain, on one end in big, bold letters stood “THIS PERSON IS DANGEROUS AND THE REASON WHY YOUR SANDWICH IS NOW ON THE GROUND.” While on the other end, meek and quiet said “But what is with the box?”
Possibly because she didn’t really have much to lose and she wasn’t entirely jumping for joy to get back in the office and be subjected to more attention from whom Shae called a “creepy duck”, she went for the latter.
“Why did you just come from a police box?”
The woman turned from smiling at her own feet to smiling at Sansa, her blue eyes twinkling with delight. “Can you keep a secret?”
Sansa nodded, deciding that she will keep the secret providing the secret didn’t involve murder.
The woman leaned close to her, cautiously this time, asking for permission. And when Sansa leaned to her too, the breeze carried her whisper.
“It’s my time machine.” The woman—The Doctor— spoke with such confidence. “Well, more of a space ship, really.”
There was another long pause of silence, her brain churning the information slowly then frantically. A piece of ham rolled quietly behind them.
There are two possibilities:
Possibility A: she is sitting next to an alien on a bench in front of her office building.
Possibility B: she is sitting next to a mad woman on a bench in front of her office building.
“That box… is your space ship?” It was almost difficult to say the words without sounding foolish.
“Yes.” The Doctor said proudly as she watched Sansa regard the blue box with utter curiousity.
“But it’s so…”
“Amazing? Magnificent? Stupendous?”
“…small.” Sansa said at the same time The Doctor provided the adjective “astounding”.
The Doctor stood up swiftly, her feet kicking off the ground with grace. Her hand reached inside her coat, pulling out a small pen-shaped object. She pressed it against the police box, which beamed and produced an odd sound. “Tell me Sansa,” She said, without turning around. “Do you always judge books by their cover?”
“Only when the book appears out of nowhere and claims to be a time travelling space ship.”
The odd beeping sound halted, The Doctor turned to her and laughed. “I like you.”
Sansa rolled her eyes, but can’t help but laugh with her.
“You should go with me… if you’d like.” The Doctor is next to her again but with an unsure look in her eyes. As if she had just asked a complete stranger to get into her time machine not ten minutes after meeting her.
On one hand: not murder.
On the other hand: insane.
So insane. Yet Sansa lets her mind swim around the idea of travelling through time and space. Going back in time to tell herself that Joffrey Baratheon is definitely not the prince her 13 year old self had conjured. Visiting planets that won’t kill her or burn her alive. But she thinks of the things she needs to do, like get back to her normal everyday life where she knows what to do.
The Doctor is by the door of the blue box, smiling at her with her hand extended. “Let’s go to an adventure.”
Though it is insane and absolutely not advisable, though her break was over and her sandwich was gone, she stood up and took the woman’s hand.