With shaking hands, I took my house keys out of my pocket and unlocked the door. The door creaked softly as it opened, and my heart ached a little at the familiar sound. I felt heat rising up in my face and burning behind my eyes: a warning that I was about to lose it. I walked calmly through the living room, where my mum was watching the news on the telly, but when I was just out of her sight, I felt myself begin to break. Sprinting up the stairs, I was barely able to fight back my tears. I swung open my bedroom door and slammed it back shut, locking it. I needed my privacy. Collapsing into my bed, I muffled my loud sobs with my pillow. I couldn't believe it. This wasn't happening. She couldn't be gone. She couldn't have left me. The same thoughts cycled in my head over and over, like a broken record. It couldn't be. It couldn't be. It couldn't be. After a couple of minutes of crying profusely, I heard a knock on my door.

"Danielle? Darling, are you all right?" my mum shouted through the door. With difficulty, I pulled myself off the bed and unlocked the door. She opened it and started at the sight of my red, puffy face. "Oh my god, what happened?"

It took me a couple of seconds to even make a sound.

"M-m-mum..." I stuttered slowly, only to trail off again. My legs began to feel weak, and I sat down, putting my head in my hands sobbing again. She sat down next to me, her face creased with worry.

"Darling," she repeated gently, "what happened?"

I finally stopped crying, but the deep aching in my chest and the tightness in my throat still didn't go away. My muscles felt like they had turned to lead. I was so weak. I choked out the words I had been dreading to say since I got home.

"Mum... Rose is dead."

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TWO YEARS LATER

I sat alone at a cramped little wooden table at a small coffee shop, cappuchino in hand. Rather than drinking alcohol when I was upset like everybody else, I drank coffee. It was a healthier habit, and I liked it. Rose would have approved.

This used to be our favorite spot, ever since we began high school. Once we were done with school, we would take the bus to the stop just down the street, rather than straight home, and have ourselves some pastries or a cup of coffee. So many things had happened in this little cafe: gossip had been exchanged, stories had been told, and we'd even watched a fight fall out between two of our classmates.

It had been here, also, that Rose had introduced me to the Doctor. It was a bit of a shock, honestly; she had been missing for over a year and suddenly she'd called me out of the blue and asked me to meet her in the coffee shop. The way she was talking, it was as if nothing had happened.

Then, I'd walked into the coffee shop to find her sitting at a table with a man in a leather jacket I'd never seen before. I stopped abrubtly, the door closing with a light jingle behind me. Rose, being the one with her back turned to the wall, saw me first and waved me over. It took me a second to regain control of my legs, but eventually I walked over. As I sat down, she smiled at me, but her happy expression faded with one glance at the look on my face. It was as if she'd forgotten that she hadn't seen me for over a year, which was completely ridiculous. How could she forget me, after all we'd been through? We were best friends, for god's sake!

"Daisy, I'm so sorry..." she whispered. She looked like she was about to cry. To be honest, I was too. How could she have done this? I didn't understand.

The strange man suddenly spoke, trying to break the ice.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," he said brightly, holding his hand out for me to shake. I accepted it reluctantly, looking him up and down as I did. His hair was cut very short, making his ears look larger than they should. He was wearing a deep purple V-neck underneath the jacket, which, surprisingly, didn't look too bad on him. However, he seemed rather old for a man that my best friend was hanging out with alone. I arched my eyebrow a bit in disapproval.

"If I may ask... Doctor who?" I questioned. He waved the question away as if he were swatting an annoying fly.

"Just the Doctor," he replied. I frowned. Either he was a bit cocky, or he was simply weird. Didn't matter though, I didn't like him very much so far.

"I'm Danielle." I introduced myself rather hesitantly.

"Oh I know," he said. "Rose has told me all about you." I just stared, open-mouthed, at him. This time it was Rose that saved the conversation, noticing both of our expressions as we eyed each other.

"So, Daisy... I'm sort of here ta'... explain myself, I guess. But in order for you to believe me, I need ta' show you somethin'. Is tha' alright?" she asked. Her expression was almost pleading.

I tore my eyes away from the Doctor and looked out the window, thinking. Of course I wasn't about to lose my best friend again after being torn apart from her for almost a year, but the way she explained it... I was pretty sure the story she was about to tell me was going to be a strange one. I had absolutely no idea of knowing if it was the legitimate truth. Then again, this was my only shot at ever knowing in the slightest what had happened to her over the past year, even if Rose didn't tell me the truth. I was bound to find out something that was real.

After a couple of minutes, I made my decision. I looked directly at the Doctor, then at Rose.

"Alright, show me."

We all got up at once, and I followed Rose and the Doctor out of the little cafe. They turned right and began walking down the sidewalk. Rose looked back at me and spoke over her shoulder.

"Daisy, you have ta' promise not to skip out on us, alright? You have ta' stay with us."

I nodded. However, her comment had made me a little uneasy. Why was she so sure I would leave her? I furrowed my brow and stared down at my Converse, glancing up occasionally to make sure I was still following them.

We turned right again after a few shops, into a damp, dreary little alleyway that even the cockroaches seemed to avoid. Now I was starting to get very shifty. No wonder Rose had made me promise to stick with her. I wrinkled my nose as we passed a pair of particularly smelly garbage bins. I hoped we were going to reach our destination soon.

As it turns out, my wish was granted sooner than I had expected. At the end of the alleyway stood something that seemed a little newer and cleaner than everything else. It was a deep blue box, marked with the words "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX" on the top. I walked up to it, then turned back to Rose and the Doctor, confused.

"What's this all about?" I asked curiously. I noticed the Doctor was patting down his jacket, seemingly searching for something. He took out a strange metal device resembling a stick and handed it to Rose to hold before pulling out a small key on a chain. He took back whatever Rose was holding and put it back into his jacket pocket. Then he looked back up at me.

"If you want to find out, I suggest you move aside," he snapped rather rudely. I obeyed, but not without sticking my tongue out at his back as he walked up to the box and inserted his key in the lock. Rose giggled.

The Doctor managed to get the key to work on the box. I frowned. That was strange. The door swung open and he stepped inside. So did Rose. I began walking to the box so I could talk to them through the doorway.

"Are you sure there's room for three in there...?" My sentence drifted off and I stood, open-mouthed.

"Impossible."

"Well, you're looking at it, aren't you?" replied the Doctor. I shot him a quick death glare before continuing to gaze at the spectacle inside.

It was... to sum it up, bigger on the inside. Enormous on the inside, in fact. Not to mention it was beautifully futuristic. A transparent column rose up from the middle of the gigantic room inside, with some sort of console installed around it. A circular platform with rails surrounded the console, and the Doctor and Rose were leaning against either side. The floor was made of mesh, so that if you looked down, you could see some of the exposed machinery and wires snaking around to the different places they came from. Columns of coral also bordered the room, giving it a very unique taste and a sturdy feeling. I don't know what it was about the room, but I liked it.

I ran outside again and checked around the box to make sure this wasn't a trick. Yet there wasn't anything to be suspicious of on the outside. It was one hundred percent real. As I ducked back into the box and began to walk around, Rose grinned at me. Even the Doctor couldn't resist a smile. My curiosity began to spark even more, and I looked up to them to speak.

"What exactly does all of this do? How is this even possible?" I swept my arm around, gesturing at the entire room for emphasis.

The Doctor grinned once again. "It travels through all of time and space. Time Lord science." I gasped at the first sentence, but then I furrowed my brow at his last three words.

"Time Lord?" I asked.

"What if I told you I weren't human?" the Doctor replied. I gaped at Rose. She smiled widely and nodded twice. It was true.

"But... you look human! How can you be alien?" I gasped.

"Well, you look Time Lord!" he snapped. "If you really want confirmation, I have a stethoscope here." He somehow managed to pull a rather large stethoscope out of his pocket and handed it to me. I looked at him strangely, eyebrow raised.

"My 'ship' isn't the only thing that's bigger on the inside," he confirmed. "Now go on, listen closely." He pointed to his chest enthusiastically.

I hesitated, then put the stethoscope to his chest. I could hear a regular heartbeat. I began to frown, until I heard something else that sounded like... a mirroring heartbeat? I moved around the stethoscope a little until it landed above his second heart. Two normal heartbeats, who would have thought? I handed the stethoscope back to him, eyeing him curiously once again. He returned the stare, but with a more interested and admiring look. I could tell my reaction was slightly different than what he had expected, or even seen in the past. I couldn't help feeling a bit smug at having captured his attention.

I then turned back to Rose. I still hadn't forgotten why we were here.

"You still have to explain why you left us for so long, Rose," I said, my voice becoming dangerously quiet.

She took a deep breath and hesitated for a moment before beginning to speak. She'd been expecting this.

"Well, you heard the Doctor explain tha' this... machine can travel through all of time and space?" she stopped and looked at me until I nodded in confirmation. '"Well, I know it's been a year since you've last seen me, but for me, the last time I saw you was yesterday. From my perspective, I've only been gone for a day."

The explanation barely made me feel any better. I began to get angry.

"And whose bloody idea was it to come back after a year? Was it his?!" I gestured rather rudely at the Doctor, who barely flinched at my remark. Rose looked rather terrified, but shakily continued her explanation.

"The machine malfunctioned a bit. The doctor entered the exact date, and the TARDIS- this thing..." she gestured around the room, "got everything right but the year. We were meant to come back twelve hours later... not twelve months..." she walked over and sat down on the only chair in the room, head in her hands.

I felt a slight pang of guilt for yelling at her. I could only imagine all the stress she must be going through, especially since she didn't mean for this to happen in the slightest. If she'd already seen her mum and Mickey, which she most likely had... she'd probably already been to hell and back. I sat next to her and put my arms around her. She turned around and did the same. Without exchanging any words, we'd come to a silent agreement. I pulled away from the hug and I smiled at her reassuringly. She smiled back, and I could see the twinkle in her eye again, revived.

After that had been resolved, we'd trudged back to the little cafe and bought ourselves a coffee each. Well, with the exception of the Doctor. I guess a nice shot of caffeine wasn't exactly the healthiest thing to give to a person with two hearts. So instead, he sat at the table and waited for us to finish our orders.

We spent the entire afternoon talking about Rose and the Doctor's adventures through time. The stories bounced between them, one interrupting the other and correcting them before taking the tale over from there. I enjoyed it immensely; they were both very good storytellers and the chemistry between them made me laugh. I asked lots of questions while they explained what they had been doing, which the Doctor mostly answered, but occaisionally Rose would shout out an answer before the Doctor, beaming with pride.

I smiled to myself as I sat at my little table, the same one we had been at just three years ago, recounting the adventures. Thinking about that day reminded me of how much I missed Rose, but in a good way. There were no tears, just smiles, and that was just the way I liked it these days. I liked staying happy.

After about five more minutes, I decided it was about time to leave. I had a bus to catch in order to get back home, and it was going to arrive soon. I pushed the door open to leave, and it closed behind me with a light jingle as I walked down to the bus stop. There was a man already sitting on the bench there. He was wearing an unusal combination of clothing that somehow suited him: a trenchcoat over a pinstripe suit and tie. When I glanced at his feet, I saw that he was wearing Converse. I liked his taste.

I sat down on the bench a respectable distance away from him; he was still a stranger to me, after all. When I did sit next to him, he glanced over at me airily, then froze, wide-eyed.

I stared. He must have me mistaken for someone else. I decided to try and reassure him.

"Sir, are you alright?" I asked. He cleared his throat nervously and ran a hand through the front of his hair quickly.

"Perfectly alright," he choked out. He was still staring at me like he'd seen a ghost. I decided to give it up. He probably wasn't going to tell me anytime soon. However, he spoke to me again after a moment.

"If you don't mind me asking... what is your name?" he asked nervously.

"Danielle Davidson, sir." I said respectively. His expression changed from one of agitation to one of deep pain. I was starting to become concerned. Perhaps I knew the man, and I didn't remember him. I decided to try to find out if I did.

"And what would your name be, sir?" I asked him softly. He closed his eyes shut for a second, inhaling deeply. When I got his answer, I could barely hear it, he muttered it so quietly.

"I'm the Doctor. Just call me the Doctor."