I swirl my noddles around the little Chinese box, looking outside the shabby Chinese Diner. People are busy running to and fro, lost in their lives. Their own worlds, their own problems. While I have my own, in fact, a very big one.

The Charlie in front of me isn't my Charlie.

I don't know how I know, it's not that his face looks different (he could've finally gotten a haircut for all I know), it's not that his voice is a dull monotone, no, it's the fact that he's different. I'm not even fully sure that he's human.

How can I tell? It's the lack of air being inhaled inwards, the fact that his eyes are glassy and listless, that I can't hear the buzz of his thoughts, that he's not alive and probably the fact that he's questioning me about the Doctor like I'm a War Criminal.

"Asa." Charlie speaks a little forcefully, putting his hand on top of mine, distracting me from my thoughts. "I need you to tell me about the Doctor, why he's here, what are his plans." He grips onto my hand.

"Y'know, my Mum used to tell me stories about a pilot called the Docotor, he'd fly around time and space." I turned back to Charlie. "But you should already know that, who are you?" I growled, ripping my hand away.

"An Auton, it seems, slightly more upgraded since I last met you." A new voice said, he, the Doctor, raps his knuckles on Charlie's forehead. "It's a bit nicer, slightly more realistic... Ah yes! But they still have what I was looking for... The transmission cycle. What a golden egg this is!"

"An Auton." I gasped, "I should've known. So then that chip will give us a signal to the Nestene Consciousness, am I right?"

"Yes." The Doctor frowned, looking me over, really looking at me. "How did you know that?"

"Uh," I trailed off, "lucky guess?" I gulped nervously.

After a silence, the Doctor spoke first, seemingly slightly troubled. "Well yes, the Tardis should be able to give me the exact location."

"You?" I spoke incredulously. "No, I'm coming with you."

"Why would you want to come with me?" The Doctor asked, seeming a little loopy. I guess that's what happens to you when you spend your time criss crossing the Galaxy on insane errands.

"Because my boyfriend is captive to the Nestene Consciousness." And if you're truly the Doctor, I'd never pass up the opportunity to travel in the Tardis.

The Doctor sighed in defeat and nodded me along. I grinned and despite the dire situation of my boyfriend, I skipped behind the Doctor. He walked, quite rushedly, around a couple of corners to where a blue Police box was sitting snug on the side of the street.

I could barely contain my excitement, in fact, I had to suppress a squeal before following the Doctor inside. As expected, the Tardis was larger on the inside. I had to stand with a hand over my mouth to stop myself screaming and chaining myself to the wall.

"She's amazing!" I gape, swirling around. "Aha, yes!"

The Doctor stops his rushing about to look at my reaction. "What's your name?" He asks curiously.

"Nona-Ase, some people just call me Asa." I speak absentmindedly, drinking in the sight.

"You're an interesting case, Asa." He frowns slightly, like in confusion than more trouble.

"How so, Doc?" I turn to him questioningly. I cross my arms, transferring the weight of my body to one leg, tapping my finger against my elbow, if gives me a sassy look.

The Doctor looks into space, as if the answers will appear, floating among the stars. I wait patiently, thinking back to my mother's words. "He could see everything, Asa, the alignment of the stars, the planets, all of space and time, was in his mind. It would drive any normal person mad. So he'd go off on a tangent and then completely lose all coherent thought. His far, greater mind, saw something that I would never understand." I jolted back from the memory, wondering how well my mother knew the Doctor to be able to describe him in such detail.

A beeping interrupted our tangents and the Doctor leaps into action. "I've got it!" He cries, flicking switches and amusing meters. I rushed forwards, somehow, being able to tell the difference between all of them. That one altered time, in millisections, seconds, minutes, hours, days, months and years. There was another that altered six different axis of travel destinations. Three planes for our reality, another three for inter-dimensional travel. There was a computer that one could enter the location and time by hand, but due to the wear on the knobs, it seemed like the individual controls worked better.

The Tardis began, powering up, I should say, sounding different then I expected, a cross between a dinosaur roar and a grating of a trash can. I heard onto the appropriate bars, not being able to contain the wild grin etched across my face.

"Ah hah!" The Doctor cried with happiness, I cheered and then we landed.

Suddenly, my excitement evaporated, thoughts and worries and pointless things invaded my mind, causing me to wonder about Charlie. I gulped, a spread of fear, crossing through me. "Come on." I whispered hoarsely, rushing towards the Tardis door. "We've gotta save Charlie."

"Asa-!" The Doctor cried in warning, I ignored it, rushing out and almost falling off of the edge of Big Ben.

"Ahhhhhhhhhh flip!" I screamed, my feet dangling over the edge. I couldn't help but notice the large proximity of space between my feet and the ground. "Why are we parked on top of Big Ben?" Because, y'know, no one at all is gonna miss a bright, blue, Police Box sitting atop Big Ben.

"Asa!" The Doctor cried above me, his hand outstretched. "Take my hand, you've gotta trust me."

"I just met you!" I cried, slightly enraged. "At least take me to dinner first!"

It seemed, the Doctor almost gave up there and then, why did I have to be stuck with this girl, what the actual heck. Ironically, he was the person I trusted the most in this world. I'd grown up with stories about bath mat people, Daleks and the Doctor himself. Meeting him in person had ticked off almost every entry on my bucket list.

"Asa. Listen to me, give me your hand." He said calmly, for all the wind whipping my blonde hair into my mouth and eyes, he seemed to be over-estimating me.

This is the one time you get to be with the Doctor. I grit my teeth, transferring my weight to my left hand before reaching up with my right. Our fingers brushed dramatically for a couple of seconds, then caught. He secured a firm grip and wrenched me up, sliding me onto the rooftop.

"Next time," I wheezed, "don't park the Tardis on the top of Big Ben."

"Then don't fall off of it." I rolled my eyes, following the Doctor down to inside the famous clock tower.

...

Something like, four hundred fights of stairs later, the Doctor said we were at the lair. He said that the Autons respond well to a good signal, somewhere high and in plain sight. I already knew this but I rolled along with it.

The Doctor pulled out his metal stick again, this time I realised that it was his sonic screwdriver. He pressed it to the lock and then passed a small, side button. The door swung open and we walked onto a catwalk over a large pit of lava.

"The Nestene Consciousness." I whispered, then I turned and saw a row of human-sized cylinders with figures inside. "And Charlie!"

"You get Charlie," the Doc whispered. "I'm going to distract it, but first, I need to bring in the rest of the Autons. They have a failsafe against that now. Seems likes they evolved a bit more than from last time." He muttered the last sentence to himself. I nodded and rushed over to where Charlie was, deciding that the red button labelled 'emergency open' would do the trick.

The cylinders popped open and I got a good look at Charlie. His eyes were closed, he face sweaty, he had tubes that looked like they were connecting to his brains somehow. There was a tube into his nose and down his mouth. His clothes and skin were wet. I looked at the floor of the tube, there was remnants of gel there. I pushed them aside, a design engraved into the floor. A circle with a star inside, from the curl came little lines, kind of like a dream catcher.

Charlie groaned, lurching forwards, gagging. I rushed to his aid, helping him remove the tubing and stagger to his feet. I did the same to the other eight or so people. Soon, there was a small group of frightened people, wet, shivering and confused.

I turned to the Doctor, the mannequins, or the Autons, had arrived. They walked to the Nestene Consciousness, Nestene verbally declaring his outrage in a language I could understand. The Autons crawled into the large vat of boiling plastic. The Doctor was about to declare victory when six of them came up suddenly, ancapitating him, forcing him to the floor.

He saw me, opening his mouth to cry out. "Asa go! Take them out of here!" I spun back to the shivering and fearful group.

"C'mon people, let's get moving, upstairs, now." I shooed and hurried them along. Charlie lingers to watch watch what I am, over the edge, at the Doctor.

"We've gotta go, Ase, c'mon." Charlie tugged at my sleeve. I frowned. "Asa! He's telling us to go, we've gotta go!" I shook off Charlie, glaring at him. Something in his eyes made me stop, he saw me as incapable, weak. Suddenly, everything about Charlie came flooding back; the void of darkness that I'd be left with after he was gone, all the times he put me down, saying that I wasn't good enough, that I couldn't do it, that I needed to be realistic.

Well you know what?

Screw reality.

"Get the others out of here." I snapped, "leave me, I'm gonna help him."

There was a bar hanging overhead, heaps of loose chains hung around it. Looping back and around and reaching down. I grinned, grasping one in my hand, tugging at it to test its strength. I held on with my hands, standing on top of the safety railing.

"Are you crazy?!" Charlie cried, the winds from the heat, drying out his hair, having it stick up.

"Maybe." I said grimly, perhaps with a hint of challenge accepted. "But the Doctor is here, so that means I'm not the craziest one in the room, oh, by the way, this also means I'm breaking up with you." I flashed a grin before turning back, wrapping my feet around the chain, I jumped.

Sailing through the air, was both thrilling and terrifying. My body knew when to let go at the right time and I went bowling into four of the five Autons. The Doctor took out the last one as I landed semi-gracefully on the deck with a grin.

"That should be all of them." The Doctor grinned back, taking out a flask with a navy-blue colour.

"Anti-plastic?" I asked, reverting back to my fangirl state.

"Always works." The Doctor grinned, taking off the seal and letting it drop into the molten. He grabbed my hand and we both rushed out of there, me, grinning the whole way.

...

"That was fantastic!" I grinned, cheering as the Tardis started up.

"You, were absolutely brilliant." The Doctor grinned. I blushed. He quietened down. "Asa? Can I ask you a question?"

"If only I can ask you one first." With his nod, I continued. "Why don't you... Have a companion? I mean, from the stories that I've heard about you, you always travelled with one. Someone to save on all those missions..." I trailed off.

"The companion's job was to remind me of my humanity." He spoke gently, choosing his words, his face was set in a teal light, his ginger curls glinting oddly in the low light. "Then it was too much, I was reminded of every aspect of it; the love, the pain, the hurt, betrayal, mercy, the loss of family and friends, weaknesses and I decided that it was ... Too much."

"But, the question you should ask yourself." I spoke softly after a long silence. "Is what do you become without that humanity?"

There was another long silence before he decided to change the subject. "Why can't I get a read on you? It's seems odd, that I just can't find anything about you anywhere."

I shrugged sullenly. "My mother always said I was gifted with abilities. Sometimes I hear the chatter of people, but it's not what's coming from their mouth, but rather their head. I can understand every language anyone's ever spoken, I'm very good with luck too, I can forecast the future and sometimes... I see things where no one else can see them." I drift off, looking into the eyes of the Doctor, still, bright and supernaturally insane. It's just the irises, not the whole opening.

I look away and blink the spots away.

The Tardis lands, I'm not exactly sure how I know, I just do. I make sure that my eyes linger over every inch of this place, taking in all of it. It must be a dream. I think to myself. How else could I be in the place of my childhood imagination? I breathe in the scent, then manage to open to the door to the outside world.

We're in a street, a block or two away from my home, the Doctor's right behind me. "Asa," he speaks gently. "Did you ever have a father?"

I look down and shake my head. "He left before I was born." The Doctor nods slowly, I hear the sharp clip of my mother's heels and spin around. She's running towards me, crying my name, when she gets there, she embraces me in the biggest hug, picking me up and spinning me around, her blonde hair, slightly darker than mine, whipping me in the face.

"I though you were gone forever! Nona-Asa! Never do that to me again!" She cries, I nod convincingly. She turns to the Doctor as if they're old friends, "I thought you'd be behind all this! Where di you go this time! She could've died!" A vein was beginning to form in my mother's hairline.

"Rose Tyler." The Doctor grins. "It's been what, five regenerations?"

"Don't you Rose Tyler me! Doctor, you're avoiding the fact that Nona-Asa almost died! ... Probably." She added the last part quite unconvincingly.

"You've missed me." The Doctor says. "I mean, naming Asa after me and everything!"

"This isn't about her." Mum growled and the same time I said, "what?"

His voice activated into high-speed textbook information. "Nona, in Latin, meaning, born Ninth and Ase in Hebrew meaning Doctor, Doctor Nine, Ninth Doctor, very smart, Rose Tyler, very smart." The Doctor grinned, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"Oh well, I remembered enough of the world's secrets from the Tardis thankyouverymuch." She said scathingly, a hand on her hip, her eyes slitted and glaring.

"That's right!" He declared, suddenly, the Doctor turned to me, "Asa, how would you like to be my companion?"

Please comment some ideas, for time travelling fun, a bit of symbolism there by Rose, you'll get it soon ;)

What's your favourite episode and Doctors of Dr. Who?