Episode One: The Rutans' Fury *part one*

Well, I've finally finished it. I'm only giving you part, though, so here it is. :)

I’ve seen things that most people haven’t, and they probably never will. Things like aliens and nebulae that the human race won’t see in person for years. My life was nothing before my adventures. It was always: get up, go to school, come home and watch the telly, go to sleep. Every day. Meeting the Doctor not only made my life more exciting, but he taught me how to live. Really live.

I still remember when I first met him. I was nineteen years old, and it was the year 2006. (And trust me, the year is significant when you’re traveling with the Doctor.)

I was walking home after getting groceries from the corner store in London, and decided to take a rest on the edge of the street. It was a bit early in the morning, and raining slightly, so not many people were out. My mum had sent me out for the food, and was happily sitting in front of the telly at the apartment. I was a bit miffed for being out so early, and in the rain, but I was tired. I sat down under a lamppost and sighed, watching a few cars pass by

That was when I heard it. The noise. It could have been anything, but it made my heart leap with an excitement I had never felt before.

As the sound ebbed in and out, like waves of an oncoming storm, I stood up and turned towards—a big blue box that hadn’t been there fifteen seconds before. A police box. Well, I guessed it was a police box, because that’s what it said in white letters across the top.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I slowly walked up to the wooden figure, and pressed my head against its door. I heard movement from within, people talking, and laughter. It didn’t seem quite right though, because the box was only so big, but these voices seemed to be coming from a lot farther away than the its walls permitted.

I stood closer to the police box, and before I could take my head away, the door burst open, sending me flailing backwards into the street lamp.

“Oh, sorry!” said a tall man in a trench coat and suit. He had funny brown hair and glasses, and, though his awkward appearance had the aura of a man who had seen many things, and you didn’t want to mess with him.

“Are you alright?” asked a girl behind him. She had blond hair and a Welsh accent, very spunky-looking, and couldn’t have been much older than me.

“Y-yes. I’m fine.” I looked back at the blue box in bewilderment. “Who are you?”

“I’m the Doctor,” the man replied quirkily. “And this is Rose.” He nodded at his friend. “And who might you be?” The Doctor bent down and smiled at me a little incredulously.

“I’m Lisa. Lisa Anderson. Um, what’s that?” I pointed to the box.

“It’s a police box,” Rose replied, a hint of awe in her voice. “Like from the fifties. The police would use it to keep criminals in until more help could come, and normal people could use it to contact the police.”

“Oh...”

“I’d love to stay and chat,” the Doctor said hastily, “but we’ve really got a bit of a problem. Well, two problems. Well,” he scratched his head. “Two problems and a guy named Elton.”

And with that, Rose and the Doctor ran off down the street.

I’d almost forgotten about that day until a year or so later. I had just sprained my ankle, and my overly concerned mother said we should go to the hospital.

When one weird guy in a black helmet ran into her in the lobby, she totally cussed him out. It gave me a chance to slink away, unnoticed, into the next ward.

Brianne Anderson is an odd woman, and you don't want to make her angry.

Once I had gotten suitably lost in the winding hallways with monotonous white walls with the occasional doctor in an equally boring lab coat, I began to get tired. I slipped into a nearby room full of med students buzzing around carrying clipboards, and sat down on the nearest cot.

That was when I spotted the Doctor. He was talking to a student, grinning up at her from a cot like he knew the answer to a very tricky riddle.

Everything that happened that day was like something from a nightmare. Some people said the hospital was transported to the moon. I don't remember much, because when we 'landed on the moon', the whole hospital shook, sending me flying across the room. I hit my head, and it knocked me out. I didn't wake up until I heard screams from downstairs.

I walked out of the ward, massaging my head, and was confronted in the hall by-- a rhino. But this rhino was standing upright, wearing leather, and speaking English. I can't really say what exactly happened, but eventually, the rhino said I was human, and would be catalogued. And just as it was drawing a black 'X' on the back of my hand, I saw the Doctor, running through the corridors with the same medical student from before.

In the end, the whole hospital incident was figured out, and I met up with my mum afterwards, who had gotten outside before the medical center had... disappeared. She said it was all over the telly.

"The whole thing just- vanished!" she exclaimed when we'd gotten back home.

I never really knew what happened that day, except for the stories I heard on the news, and even then, the only thing that truly stood out in my mind, was seeing the Doctor.

I could go on and on with my stories of seeing the Doctor, here and there, through the years, and I would never get anywhere. Not until Christmas, the year I was twenty-one.

"Oi!" Mum yelled from the kitchen. "Wake up, sunshine!"

"I'm up," I said, walking in from my room. I was still wearing my pajamas and yawning.

"Okay, could you wash the dishes?" She threw me a wash towel. “I’m going Christmas shopping.”

“God, it is Christmas, isn’t it…” I yawned again. “Oh, and Nikki wanted me to come to that party tonight.”

"Mmhmm?" She raised an eyebrow. "When is it?"

"Around… five? She wants to meet me earlier though," I replied.

"Well that doesn't excuse you from the chores, sweetheart. Finish up, and then you can get ready. It’s nearly two o’clock now."

I washed the pile of dishes for the next hour while Mum was out shopping. When I was done, it was three, and I needed to start getting ready for the party.

"Mum!" I yelled, drying my hands off on a towel.

"What is it, Lisa?" she answered as she walked in the door, laden with gift bags.

"I'm going to the party, got it?" I walked in, and found her sitting on the couch with an odd expression on her face.

She sighed. "It's just... It's Christmas Eve, sweetie, and the past few years, it's been... well, odd."

Mum was right. I remembered everything. The aliens that started it all, controlling people by blood. I was one of the people standing on the roof. And the year after, when the Christmas star exploded. Then, the Christmas when the Titanic nearly crashed into Buckingham Palace, Mum and I were in the small group of people who stayed in London.

"I just want you near me, Lisa," she continued. "Because what if something happens? I’m letting you go tonight, but be back before eleven.”

I smiled. "Thanks, Mum."

I hopped out of the taxi, paid the driver, and proceeded to wait for my friends on the chilly curb of the street. It being Christmas Eve, and Christmas Eve in London, no one was out like you would normally guess. The streets were like a ghost town, and the few people who were out kept nervously glancing up at the sky.

I checked my watch in the last light of the day, and wondered what time my friend would show up.

Well, I thought, Nikki Smitherson wasn’t known for her punctuality.

I decided to wait in the nearest coffee shop until their arrival.

The bell jingled as I pushed the door to the small cafe open, a merry sound that did not quite fit with the way it looked inside. The usually busy restaurant was wholly deserted, save for the bored looking man behind the counter. Upon hearing me come in, he looked up and smiled, looking relieved to actually have a customer.

"I see you're brave enough," he said as I walked up to the counter.

“Brave enough?” I asked.

“It’s Christmas, innit? There might be aliens…”

I shrugged, took my scarf off, and looked up at the menu. "Can I just have a coffee? Plain, please."

Sitting down by the window, I noticed it had begun to snow. I heard music. Trumpets playing Christmas songs. I'd heard it before, somewhere. Something about it seemed haunting. Not right.

I had a flash of a memory as I stood up to get a better look out the window. I couldn't see a thing. The snow had started falling faster, blocking my view outside to a scene of frantic whiteness.

"And where do you think you're going?" asked the man behind the counter as I bundled myself up.

“I’m going outside,” I said absentmindedly. “Be back in a moment…”

I walked outside, and gasped at the cold that pierced through my jacket. My phone rang. I fumbled with it for a while before my clumsy, glove-covered hands could press the ‘answer’ button.

“Hello?” I said, my cold fingers nearly dropping it onto the sidewalk. I was following the sound of Christmas carols through the icy walkway.

“Gawd, Lisa, it’s Nikki.”

“Where are you?” I stopped under a lamppost and looked across the street. I saw lights, and the music seemed to be coming from there, so I crossed.

“I’m stuck, that’s where I am,” she replied angrily. “Dad had a change of heart, so now I’m here, can’t go to the party, watching the telly, with nothing to do and nowhere to go.”

“Someone’s in trouble…” I joked. “What’d you do?”

“Nothing!” Nikki exclaimed loudly, making me jerk the phone away from my head. “Didn’t do a thing! Dad’s all like, ‘Nicole, you are not to leave the house tonight, got it? It’s Christmas and we’re here to be a family.’ And you know what I say?”

“What,” I asked, letting my friend burn off some steam.

“I say, ‘Hell, Dad. I think you’re just afraid that E.T.’s coming home tonight.’ And he gets all worked up, like I’ve gone and chucked tomatoes at the Queen!”

“So basically,” I said, tightening my coat and stopping to sit on a bench. “You’re twenty-one years old, and you’re grounded.”

“Shut up! But anyway, I won’t be coming to the party tonight. Sorry.”

“Joy…” I said sarcastically. “Well, I guess I’m not going if you’re not going, so maybe I could get a bit of holiday shopping done for my mum. Have fun being grounded, Nikki.”

“Oi. Bye. Talk to you later.”

I hung up, and looked around. The music started up again, and I walked toward the small square where people had set up stands for the newspaper and other miscellaneous objects for people to buy. Not many Londoners were out, but the few that were, had clustered around three dancing men wearing Father Christmas costumes and playing trumpets.

“Oh, God,” I whispered to myself, catching snatches of memories from Christmases ago, of explosions and fires, and seeing the Doctor’s friend, Rose, from the corner of my eye. And then, without thinking, began to yell. “Oi! Everyone get away! Now!”

People turned startled faces towards me, clearly not remembering what I did.

“Run! They’re not what you think they are!” I pointed to the Santas, who had stopped playing and begun to aim at the crowd with their trumpets like guns.

BOOM!

The first Santa blew his trombone-bazooka into the throng of people, and they screamed.

“Run!” I yelled again.

A part of me wished I hadn’t left the warm coffee shop. That part of me was shivering, stumbling through the street, crying for my mum. The rest of me was in a sort of daze, trying to help people as the ran by, sobbing.

"Mummy!" a little pig-tailed girl in a red dressed cried. "Where are you?"

The world whirled around me as another shot rang out in the square.

I turned around, and saw a door in the side of a building. I could run. Get myself out of this mess. Run, run away and save myself, leaving the rest of these people to get out on their own. It was so easy. Just run up and slip away into the building.

I could do that.

But I didn't.

Okay, that's all i'm giving you for now. The first part is NOT the best, but it gets better towards the end i PROMISEPROMISE.