Chapter Text
"Which one?"
Jasper's large hands were enclosed around a pile of flowers, methodically picked free on the path to his university, a mix of pinks and blues working well together despite their differences.
The stray cat at his knees didn't agree, pushing past them to gnaw on the petals to a lonesome Yellow-Lupin.
Jasper, offended, tugged the flowers away.
"I didn't say eat it." He grumbled, "Whatever. Here."
Pulling the yellow flower from others, he set it down on the footpath and in front of the cat's socked paws.
The ginger ball of fluff munched down on the stem like there was no tomorrow.
Jasper huffed a laugh.
It looked up unexpectedly, ears pulling back against its head and hissed, malice well heard, before skittering in the opposite direction.
"No!" Jasper flung his hand out, the can of cat food still unopened. "Shit."
He watched it go, jumping onto a fence and into someones garden before he sighed, stood up and gathered the iced coffee he almost abandoned.
The real question was, what had scared the cat off?
Cautious of the feline's apparent tormentor, Jasper slowly spun around. He only hoped it wasn't a person. But he stopped, feet fastening to the ground like glue.
It was a sudden, rigid feeling, his ears prickling with the familiar noise. A specific indication of a ship materialising.
The noise passed his ears like the wind, trying to dismiss itself as his grand imagination. His eyes darted through the trees on the other side of the road to land on something that made his blood run cold.
"What? No, that can't - what? No."
It simply had to be a figment of his imagination. He palmed at his eyes, scrubbing out the illusion -
- only it was still there.
The TARDIS, shaded by the luscious trees overhead, sticking out like a sore thumb in the year 2020, far from its time.
Jasper hadn't realised he was moving closer but slowed when he did, feet merely tiptoeing across the concrete.
Was he. . . drugged? He pulled the plastic cup of coffee away at arm's distance in examination. It wasn't remotely possible, as he'd made it himself, so Jasper dragged the straw back to his lips.
Back to the problem at hand. The TARDIS.
He considered walking up to it, tapping his fingers against the hardwood but his mind supplied him several reasons as to why he shouldn't. Anxiety crawled up his skin like vines, snaking around his arms to his throat.
What if someone was watching him from their window? Did he look terribly stupid? He hadn't checked in the mirror lately.
Jasper's curiosity begged him to cross the road, into the mass of trees and to the TARDIS, dangerously close to sliding down the slope into the creek below.
He wondered how this possible prankster knew he was a decent target. Doctor Who was a show long since watched, years ago when he had the time between classes.
An unexpected pain bounced between his skull when he tried to remember how long ago that was.
When had he stopped?
Jasper frowned. He was standing tall but awkwardly unmoving on the sidewalk. Half an hour late to his class already, he was sure no other students were around to see but he still felt the hair on his neck stand on end.
Brown eyes eventually landed firmly on the big blue box, the rugged capsule of time and space, with a purpose.
Jasper flipped open the leather messenger bag for his phone and crossed the street towards the TARDIS look-alike.
His friends always said he had an overreactive imagination.
He dusted the tips of his fingers against the splintered wood, withdrawing when a foreign feeling pulsed through the paint to his hand.
"If you're looking for acknowledgment, you got it." He stalked around the box, eyes searching the corners for suspected cameras.
Jasper stopped in front of the doors, and gently rapped his knuckles. "Knock knock."
"Who's there?"
He shrieked, jumping from the voice too close to his ear and stupidly, so very stupidly, tripping over the curb and onto the road -
The perpetrator yanked him back with a hand twisted in his sweater, as if it was any other Tuesday morning.
A car beeped angrily at them as it sped past.
"You know, I really should've expected that." The voice, quick and light, sounded cheerful despite the accident. "Sorry."
Jasper looked up. Eyes jumped from a set of converse, to a blue suit, to a toothy smile.
It clicked immediately that the Tenth Doctor was standing right in front of him.
David Tennant, he corrected.
"Yeah. You bet." Jasper forced his voice to remain steady.
He felt David's hand against his collarbone, warm and real, suggesting it wasn't a dream or a hallucination.
It was a clever prank, that was for sure.
Jasper tilted his chin up in faux confidence.
David rung his hands together, looking somewhat excited. "The monitors refuse to do their job so I'm a tad misplaced. I'd like to say that doesn't happen very often -" he winced, cocking his head, "but everytime I do I just dig myself into a deeper hole. You mind fillin' me in on where we are? And most importantly -"
His eyes darted in each direction, analyzing the oddly similar houses lining the streets beside the university building, "- when we are? Judging by the mask," he points at the thing hanging from Jasper's ear, "I estimate the 2000s. I. . . Sorry, are you alright?"
Jasper nodded.
He took in the Doctor's eyes first, full of wonder and knowledge, glinting with mischief. When had he accepted this was the Doctor? God, someone was having a good laugh.
David's hair was perfectly trimmed and styled, a few strands hanging in front of his eyes. His smile was everything Jasper imagined it would be.
"Do I have something on my face?"
Jasper snapped out of it, watching David squish his cheeks between his hands.
This was getting ridiculous. "David, right?"
"Who?" Said man frowned, pulling a hand from his trenchcoat pocket to point at Jasper. "You?"
"No, no, you see - this -" Jasper fumbled for words before eventually tossing his hand in the air, and looking away, a slight grumble to his voice as he answered. "Australia. Twenty-twenty."
David grimaced, "Ah."
He lifted a thick brow, "Ah?"
"I like to avoid these few years."
"Really?" He deadpanned, eyes watching the other man's every move. Everything David did, every expression, every action, reminded him of the Doctor. "Wait, few? As in more than one year?"
David continued as if he didn't hear him, "No, you know what? This is brilliant. You're just what I needed. Where are you headed?"
". . .Uni?"
"Ah, I should've noticed from the bag." He studied the boy's athletic form and tanned skin, slight muscle showing beneath the grey sweater. "You play football? You look like someone who plays football."
"I run, mostly. But no, no football."
The Doctor flashed a mischievous smirk. Running was, after all, his favourite pastime.
Jasper jabbed at the man's tie, feeling the genuine solidness of a collarbone, then counted his own fingers, going the extra mile to guarantee he wasn't dreaming.
Yeah, still real.
The Doctor stared at him, mouth parted. He looked a bit comical until he shoved his hands into his pockets and smiled another blinding grin. "Don't you wanna know who I am? They usually ask."
Jasper wasn't sure how to answer that.
"I'm the -"
"Doctor." He finished for him, crossing his arms. "The Tenth Doctor, and that's the TARDIS. Very believable." He ground out the agreement sarcastically.
David's smile dropped, so suddenly that Jasper dropped his snark along with it. He looked away and stuck his tongue against his teeth.
"How do you know that?" David arched a brow.
Jasper chuckled, the sound deep and rough, wry and doubtful. It petered off into a tense silence when he realised he was still being examined in that sharp stare.
"Right then. I think there's more to this visit than I expected." The Doctor said lowly, sucking in a sharp breath. "What's your name?"
As he turned, reaching for the TARDIS doors, his converse crunched down against something hard. He bent over, lifting Jasper's phone from the dirt and passed it over with a wince. The screen was cracked.
"Jasper." The brunette answered in a grumble, eyes wavering towards the TARDIS.
This was it.
The doors of the police box creaked open.
The Doctor skipped through the entrance, heading for the console immediately.
Jasper stuck his hand out to catch the door before it closed, but didn't dare enter, glued to the dirt.
Okay.
This wasn't a prank.
Like the Doctor's companions had mentioned so many times before, the TARDIS was, in fact, "Bigger on the inside." He whispered, eyes narrowed.
The man sliding around the console was the Doctor. The legitimate Doctor. But then - well, then it had to be a dream because the TARDIS couldn't jump alternate realities, it wasn't possible after the Time Lords -
And what part of the timeline were they in? Rose-Doctor, Martha-Doctor, Donna-Doctor? Jasper didn't know.
It'd be exciting if he didn't think he was losing his mind.
"How did you get here?"
The wind picked up, easing the burn against his skin. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't step inside the TARDIS. It felt wrong. He didn't belong. He felt a sort of brooding presence at his very existence.
"I need you to explain to me what you think is happening." The Time Lord demanded, rushing over to the monitor. He whacked it a few times but still, no luck.
"I have a few theories myself. The most reasonable is telling me that I'm losing my fucking head."
The Doctor waved him on, pulling a pair glasses down to the bridge of his nose. If it really was just to make him "look a bit clever", it worked.
Jasper sighed, bracing himself for the denial. "To me, you're a character from a TV show called-"
"That's not even remotely possible." The Doctor said, sliding over to press some buttons.
Jasper couldn't see him from the doorway, yearning to take that extra step forward to fix the issue. The hair on his arms stood on end the second he thought about it, a judging stare forcing him to back down.
The Doctor twisted around the console again, and Jasper continued.
"I thought. . . maybe a prank? But then you opened the doors and she's actually bigger on the inside. You can't fake that." Jasper looked around in awe, "She's cool as hell."
The Doctor grinned, pausing in front of him. "Isn't she?"
This time Jasper couldn't keep his lips from twisting upwards - that smile was contagious as all hell - before pointedly looking away, like he didn't want to give the Doctor the satisfaction of squeezing a smile out of him.
The Doctor moved around him and consequently, the door, to sniff the air.
Deciding it wasn't thorough enough, he stuck a wet finger out experimentally and pulled it back to to lick it again. "Tastes weird." He said to himself.
Jasper huffed. "Doesn't it always?"
"No, no, no. This is different."
He followed the Doctor to the middle of the road cautiously, shuffling his weight from foot to foot just in case a car turned the corner.
Jasper narrowed his eyes, the novelty wearing off. "No, hold on, you're a fictional character, how are you here?"
"Me? I'm not fictional. I'm standing right in front of you."
Exhasperated, Jasper dug through his pocket for his phone, fingers flying across the cracked screen to type two simple words into Chrome's search bar. Never, ever Safari. Who used Safari?
DOCTOR WHO
"Don't believe me?" He stepped around him so they were forced to face one another, lifting the phone. "What about now?"
The Doctor pulled it from his hands, squinting at the screen.
Jasper glanced back and forth, hoping for some sort of reaction. Eventually, he let his eyes drift off, passing over houses that appeared exact replicas of the ones before, then to the road they both stood in the centre of.
"That's, uh. . ." The Doctor glanced at Jasper in a sort of humourous disbelief. "Do I really look like that?"
Jasper snorted half-heartedly.
The Doctor looked more than doubtful, though. Confused and sort of amused.
Frowning, Jasper tilted the phone towards him to watch those slender fingers scroll through low quality pictures of -
- literal doctors. Not the Doctor himself. Just people in shrubs posing for the camera.
Snatching the phone away from quick fingers, Jasper glared at the screen. It took him a few seconds to scour the internet for an appropriate photo of Ten, but felt at ease when the quality loaded.
However, contrary to his success, "I don't get it, I'm still seeing the same thing."
"What?" Jasper leaned over his arm and true to his words, the pictures were back to what they were before. "No, I searched you up and I saw you. I don't understand why it keeps changing." He gritted his teeth. "Doesn't matter, the point still stands. You're a fictional character, and I'm dreaming."
"Why would anyone wanna watch me on the telle?" Something dark flittered across the Doctor's face.
Jasper plied the phone from his hand and shrugged. "Why do you think?" He stepped away, "Adventure. . . Freedom."
The Doctor whirled around, glaring at nothing. "Doesn't explain why I'm here -"
"Or how."
He went silent for a moment.
Jasper's bag sat heavy across his shoulder, the watch at his wrist clocking him at an hour behind his schedule. It wasn't a rare occurrence. He lost track of time, phantom aches and pains bothering him into a foggy stupor for the rest of his classes. Too many people around him to loosen up, like he was sitting in somebody else's skin.
He was on top of his assignments, everything that wasn't above 90% was sitting at 85%. At some point, he felt smart - until his professor let it slip that the assessments they were doing sat at a lower level than intented.
So yeah, that helped.
The Doctor was stumbling across the road and back again, scanning for something.
Jasper crossed his arms and stood his ground, "What brought you here, Doctor? The TARDIS can't travel to alternate universes, especially after. . ." He trailed off, suddenly very, very uncertain.
Was he about to spoil something?
How old was this Doctor?
When did Jasper start acting like this was real and not a dream?
". . .Is Rose here?"
The Doctor froze, halfway through scanning the road with his sonic. He didn't seem angry, but the way his face crumbled made Jasper quickly avert his eyes.
He - guiltily - couldn't believe he was dreaming of a Doctor without one of his favourite companions.
The Doctor cleared his throat, "Where are we exactly? And I don't mean Australia, I mean why did the TARDIS land me right here in this street? What's around here?"
"My house? The university? There's a primary school down there, Coles a little ways past the servo -" Jasper swung his arm around in the appropriate direction, then dropped it back to his side. "I don't know. Nothing really important."
He heard a car turn the corner, but it only went down another street, ignoring them completely. "Can we get off the road?"
The Doctor giddily ignored him, spinning around in a circle with the screwdriver in the air. He made a noise when looking at the results but promptly turned around, said nothing and hurried into the TARDIS.
Jasper waited outside, brows down-turned.
Then he heard it.
The TARDIS was taking off and leaving him behind.