Chapter Text
“Ah!” The Doctor stepped out of their great blue box, pulling their scarf along with them. They looked around and found themself in a small stone room that smelled of dust and age.
The Doctor was a very tall fellow, wrapped in layers of tweed and corduroy, topped off with a worn hat and an impracticably long scarf. Despite their looks, the Doctor was not human, and was, rather, an alien known as a Time Lord from a very old and dusty planet called Gallifrey. As such, the old stone room reminded them very much of home.
“Doctor, where are we?” Said a young woman, following the Doctor out of the same blue box. This woman was Sarah Jane Smith, a investigative journalist and one of the Doctor’s oldest and closest friends. Her voice was curious and her eyes shone with intelligence.
“I don’t know...” the Doctor replied. “We’re meant to be at UNIT headquarters. Was Harry messing with the controls again?”
“Not that I know of.”
The Doctor raised their voice and shouted to the box. Or, rather, to someone inside the box.
“Harry! Were you messing with the controls again?”
“Not this time, Doctor.” Said a voice from the box, exasperated. At the same time the owner of the voice emerged from the box, a young man called Harry Sullivan. Harry was a medical doctor and another one of the Doctor’s ( the Doctor, the definitive article) friends. His eyes were wide with wonder, as if it was the first time he’d stepped out of the box and realized it had moved (it wasn’t). The box he had emerged from was called the TARDIS, the Doctor’s ship, and it could travel anywhere in time and space.
Which, right now, was creating quite the issue. Because when your ship can travel the vastness of all of time and all of space, it can be very tricky to get somewhere specific. Especially if you don’t give the TARDIS specific enough instructions.
Harry repeated Sarah Jane’s question. “Doctor, this isn’t UNIT! Just where have we ended up?”
“That’s just what I was trying to find out.” The Doctor took a deep breath in through their nose. “Definitely city air. With a building this old it’s possible-“
“Oh, Doctor, look!” Said Sarah Jane. She was looking out a window. “We’re in the Tower of London!”
The Doctor and Harry walked up behind her to look.
“I’ll say.” Said Harry.
It was definitely the tower. The area inside and outside the wall was flooded with tourists and ravens. To their left the three could see the Thames. However, among the usual old stone buildings there were many that Sarah Jane and Harry couldn’t recognize. Tall, glass covered skyscrapers.
“Doctor, we’ve traveled to the future, haven’t we?” Sarah Jane turned to look at them. It was more of a statement than a question.
“The future?” Said Harry, bewildered.
“Yes, we have. Judging by the buildings I’d say we’re somewhere in the mid-2010s.” The Doctor leaned out the window. “Right location, wrong time.”
“Don’t say that, the location’s wrong, too.” Sarah Jane huffed.
The Doctor popped back inside. “It’s close enough! Just a train’s ride away- you know, in the grand scheme of things this is exactly the right location.”
“The twenty-first century... Remarkable.” Harry took the Doctor’s place leaning out the window.
“Well then! Who would like to go sightseeing, eh?” The Doctor took one end of their scarf and flung it over their shoulder. “Get a sneak peek at what life will be like in forty years!”
The Doctor was about to open the door and walk out of the room when Sarah grabbed their sleeve.
“Doctor, we’re in the Tower of London!”
“So?”
“So, this part of the tower is obviously not open to the public! There’s going to be security outside- they keep the Crown Jewels here!”
“They do?” The Doctor asked, looking around the room. “I don’t see them.”
Just then, the sound of footsteps could be heard from outside.
“Harry, get down!” Sarah Jane whispered, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him down to crouch by the wall with the doctor, out of sight from the windows.
The doctor could hear voices outside the door. Their eyes widened when they heard one of them mention reading a “spike in Artron energy”.
Artron energy is a kind of background radiation that comes from the Time Vortex itself. Anyone and anything that’s traveled through time is covered in it.
Harry looked at the Doctor, puzzled. “Doctor, what’s-“
The Doctor shushed him.
The next few moments ticked by and the Doctor held their breath. They hoped that they would pass this room by, that they could all leave and have a lovely day in the city, but they knew that if these people had a device that read Artron energy that they’d be able to track them down easily.
Slowly, the door opened and hid the Doctor and their friends from view.
“Hello?” Called a woman’s voice. She was tallish, wearing smart business clothes, and had blonde hair that was cropped just below her chin. As she looked around the room, her gaze fell on the TARDIS. A few armed soldiers entered the room behind her. The woman walked up to the TARDIS and laid a hand on it. The soldiers followed her, looking at the time capsule like it was something that didn’t look like something as underwhelming an old police box.
Slowly, the Doctor stood up and motioned for their friends to follow. As quietly as possible, the three made their way around the open door, trying to make their way out. They were almost out of the room when one of the soldiers turned around and saw them.
“Stop right there!” He shouted, drawing his gun. All the other soldiers followed suit.
The Doctor raised their arms in surrender.
“Oh my god.” The woman said.
Now that the Doctor could see her clearly, they noticed that something about this woman was familiar. They just couldn’t put their finger on why.
“Is this part of the tower restricted? I must apologise, we were simply touring the place and got lost, didn’t we?“ they looked to their friends for confirmation.
“Doctor?” The woman asked.
“You know me?”
“Well, yes.” She motioned for the soldiers to stand down. “My name is Kate Stewart. I’m Chief Scientific Officer of the Unified Intelligence Taskforce.”
The Doctor’s eyes went wide.
“Welcome to UNIT headquarters.”