Archive of Our Own ^beta

John could feel it coming. It had gotten so that now he could predict when the pain was going to start again. But what he could never predict, or maybe just never could remember, was how bad the pain was.

Frantically he looked for a place to hide. He didn't dare let it happen here on the street; they'd take him to hospital again, and then he'd be locked up for good.

His eyes lit upon a barred and chained door of a condemned warehouse. He walked over, slowly, to calm the trembling of his limbs. He tugged weakly on the lock, not having much hope of getting it to open, but to his surprise it came loose in his hands. As quickly as he could, he slipped inside and shut the door on any possible prying eyes. He started across the debris-strewn floor, and when he was almost to the far wall his legs gave out from under him. He tumbled to the floor to lie semi-conscious in the dirt and litter, writhing in agony, his hands pressed hard against his skull. His mouth was open in a silent scream - screaming in protest against the madness....

* * * * *

"Hyde Park,1" the Doctor scolded the TARDIS console sternly. "None of your side-trips this time." As if in reply, a red light on the console began flashing.

"What?" he asked it in alarm. "Your telepathic circuit?" With flying fingers, he ran a simple program into the computer. Ancient Time Lord technology came into play, and the TARDIS linked directly with the Doctor's mind to relay the unspoken message. Immediately the tall figure sank to the floor, overwhelmed by a torture both physical and mental. The TARDIS ran a rapid bio-scan of his hearts and quickly severed the part of the connection that had caused such pain to the Doctor.

Although the pain was gone it was still several seconds before the Doctor could do anything other than gasp in relief. But he was still mentally connected so he used the TARDIS' power to reach out.

Help…

Where are you? the Doctor asked.

Here, came the faint message, with a visual picture of a grimy storage room and beyond it, vague images of surrounding streets. Along with that came an impression of a desire to be five again, sipping a stout cup of tea with ‘Mum’ and far from this agony.

Somehow, in his usual lopsided way, the Doctor put two and three together and came up with four -- his contact was British and probably a Londoner. But just to be on the safe side, he allowed the telepathic circuit to position the coordinates before he punched them in. Before he could switch off the connection, though, the plea came through, more fuzzily this time.

Please… help me.

Putting all of the reassurance he could into the thought, the Doctor sent back, Don’t worry, I’m on my way. With that he closed off the link.

“Come on, old girl, there’s no time to lose.” As his sentence ended, the TARDIS materialized.

The Doctor paused only long enough to confirm the landing was correct, then dashed out the door.

Less than ten feet away lay a very nice looking teenage boy. He was doubled up in a pile of rubbish, trembling from exhaustion and pain.

The Doctor recognized the symptoms immediately. The youth was “breaking out,” coming into his powers of telepathy, and it could be fatal if not attended by other telepaths to “midwife” the process, as it were.

All Time Lords are telepathic, but some are more so than others. A friend of the Doctor’s had been such a telepath, and he, like this boy, needed someone with far more power than the Doctor had.

“What to do?” the Doctor whispered to himself as he picked up the human. As he did, the teen opened his eyes, which looked quite sad, framed as they were by dark lashes and even darker circles.

“I’m… not… mad,” he insisted weakly.

“Neither am I,” the Doctor said cheerfully. “I am the Doctor.”

The young human closed his eyes in weary resignation. “I suppose you’re going to take me to hospital.”

“What?” the Doctor stopped, his eyes bulging. “Do you need one?”

“You're the doctor,” he quoted.

“That’s right,” the Time Lord acknowledged with a toothy grin. He carried the boy through the TARDIS doors and into the bedroom Sarah Jane Smith had vacated not long ago. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“John.”

“Very well, John. I’m the Doctor. I know just what you need and I’ll do my best to get them here for you.”

John stared at him, puzzled. Them? Them who? he wondered.

“Just you wait,” the Doctor said as he put him down on the bed. Then the man reached up and tapped his long beak of a nose then ran the same hand through a wild mane of brown curls. “You rest,” he ordered, then dashed from the room.

The last John saw of him was the fringed end of a long multi-colored scarf flapping behind him. It had just missed getting caught in the closing door.

The boy lay back on the bed and looked over the room. The walls seem to glow from within and all over them were slightly darker circles.

“What odd decor… wonder where I am?” he asked the room, but was asleep before anything could have answered him.

* * * * *

The Doctor worked all night, carrying out parts of the TARDIS and setting them up in the warehouse. He wanted the transmitter to continue calling the Galactic Federation if he had to leave. The grime-encrusted windows were just beginning to grudgingly let in a bit of dawn light when the youth stepped out of the TARDIS door.

“Hullo?” he called, a bit sleepily.

The Doctor poked his head over the top of a machine. John was looking at a pile of machinery, bewildered.

“I like your place,” he ventured when he spotted the Doctor’s curly head.

“Good morning! Sleep well?” the Doctor asked as he sprang to his feet. Without waiting for a reply, he said, “I just finished. Would you like the honor of turning it on?”

John decided to be agreeable. “Sure. How?”

“That toggle just in front of you.” The Doctor leaned over and pointed down in a general direction. John found it and flipped it on. Nothing happened. The Doctor slammed his fist down on top of one part and the whole thing crackled to life.

“There,” the Doctor said with satisfaction.

“I thought you were going to take me to hospital,” John told him.

“The last thing you need is to be surrounded by a lot of sick people,” the Doctor replied. “My TARDIS was a much more suitable environment for you in your condition. I’d have preferred to put you in the ‘Zero Room,’” and here he gave a very strange look in the direction John had come from, then said in a strangled tone, “but I’m not quite sure just where it is just now…”

“I… see,” John said, not seeing at all.

He turned to look toward what the Doctor had glanced at, instead of a doorway there was a blue Police Call Box! Walking back over to it, John stuck his head through what were not battered wooden doors and peered into the large room. He came back out and walked completely around the box. Then, he did it all again. Finally, satisfied he wasn’t seeing things, but still flummoxed by what he had seen, he came back and confronted the “doctor.”

“That’s a good trick,” he said, facing the strange man with the very un-doctorlike mop of hair and the even more ridiculous scarf of many colors. “How’s it done?” his tone demanded a no-nonsense answer. He didn’t get one, though.

“It’s dimensionally transcendent,” the tall man said, dismissing the subject with a wave of his hand. Then, he leapfrogged to another. “The Galactic Federation will be most interested that a human has ‘broken out.’”

Nonplussed, John frowned and rubbed a cheek self-consciously. “What?”

“Bro--don’t you have any idea what’s been happening to you?”

“No.”

“You’re a telepath and, from what I can tell, the first of a new race of humans.”

“New… race of humans?” John goggled.

The Doctor smiled kindly. “I’ll let someone from the Galactic Council explain it to you,” he said. Again, in that mercurial way, he changed the subject again. “Cup of tea?”

“... Sure.” John decided to do whatever this crazy man suggested.

* * * * *

It was an incongruous sight, a van floating in space. Hardly a space-worthy vehicle.

“I’ll bet there’s never been a spacecraft quite like this before,” Elizabeth said, with a smile at the very idea.

“I wouldn’t be so sure, Elizabeth, after all the scrap metal the Russians and Americans have been sending up the last fifteen years.” This last was from John, who was busily scanning space with the life detector.

“And the French, and Japanese and Chinese, even the British,” Stephen added slowly, thinking of the various nations which had sent things up.

“Mmm. Better keep a look out for a police box,” John said in all seriousness.

Elizabeth laughed. Stephen also chuckled and gave John a funny look.

“Any sign of that astronaut? Elizabeth asked.

Stephen frowned to himself as John and Elizabeth talked. John had a real fascination with those old police boxes. Every so often they’d crop up in his conversation.

Then he spotted the astronaut. “There he is!” he exclaimed excitedly, pointing off to the side of the van, all thoughts of police boxes forgotten. 2