Doubled-Up(Eleven)

Sleeping quietly, Alice was unaware of the world around her. Her tiny frame was almost completely hidden under the thick blanket, curled up in a ball and nearly silent, except for her soft breathing. It was a peaceful night. A little chilly, but Autumn wasn't exactly known for its warm temperatures.

While the teenager slept, another entity was doing his best to amuse himself. Pisca was unable to 'see', as Alice was asleep, but that didn't stop him from visiting thoughts and memories in Alice's memories. He was completely absorbed with the task, only periodically pausing to check that everything was safe. Living in a ritzy little neighborhood like this, break-ins were quite possible. However, they were rare. Every home in the little cul-de-sac had some sort of security system, and the Robinson household was no exception.

Normally, it was quite safe. However, Alice found herself stirring awake in the dead of night, blearily opening her vividly green eyes to find nothing but her dark room, and Pisca gently poking at her consciousness to ask if anything was wrong.

"Dunno, Pisca... probably nothin'..." she murmured, seeming to be talking to herself, to any observer. Sitting up, she rubbed at her eyes and checked the clock... 1:47 AM. What a time to be awake.

Then Alice froze, still with one hand over her eye. Someone was in the house. It wasn't either of her parents, they didn't walk like that... so deliberate, so intent on not being heard. They weren't home tonight, anyways. That, and she wouldn't be feeling alarm from Pisca if it was her parents... Especially as the footsteps came up the stairs, and neared her bedroom door.

"Pisca..."

"One step, two, three... Where is that little guy...?" Eleven was basically crawling on the floor quietly. He had no idea that this was someone's actual house. The tardis had sent him here when he was tracking these little metal looking aliens. So of course it caught the Doctor's eye. Quickly jumping to his feet with ease, he started heading upstairs. His sonic screwdriver in his pale hands, ready to be used if he needed it. A closed door cut his path rather short when he reached the top of the stairs. "A closed door..." He frowned a little as the sonic began to bring up strange readings. This wasn't normal. His screwdriver always gave accurate readings.... most times anyway. Was this one of those rare occasions where the sonic misbehaved? Eleven stares at his screwdriver with a concentrated look as he worked to figure out the meaning of the word 'obscured.'

It all hit the Doctor within seconds and he ran into the room without even considering the fact that someone could be in there. When he actually saw a person, a girl, sitting on the bed with a startled look, he stopped just long enough to get a look at the girl. "Hello! Is this your room? I don't mean to just run in but I had a stop at the post office and they told me to give you...." He searched his pockets and pulled out a letter that seemed rather old. Carefully, he tossed the letter onto the bed. "That's the thing about time travel... can't ever get it right...." He casually fixed his bow tie. "But a straight line would be boring." The Doctor picks up a random object and glances at it. "Right!" He spins around and faced the girl on the bed. "I'm the Doctor... and this is... an important object.... where did you get this?" Moving the object upside down, he glanced at the reading on the bottom. "Made in Spain...Well isn't that rubbish?" A happy smile was on his lips as he shook the object gently. "I always loved snow globes.... Such small little snowflakes and tiny people..." He accidentally drops the snow globe and it rolled away.

The Doctor watched as the snow globe rolled out of the room and down the stairs. "Tell me something.... are you alone... in this house?" He slowly walked forward, his shoes making a small noise as he walked.

Thunderstruck at this strange man's appearance and even strangeractions, Alice sat there dumbly with wide eyes, gripping the blanket in both of her pale, near-skeletal hands. She scooted back as the Doctor walked towards her, her back pressing against the head of her twin-sized bed. A twin-sized bed for a 17-year-old... oh, how stunted she was in terms of physical growth.

"Y-Yes..." she answered, "Why are you here? And the snow globe was from my Dad's last business trip to Spain."

With that, Alice slowly slipped out of bed, standing up on thin legs in a white, somewhat old-fashioned nightgown. She sounded much older than she looked, not even five feet tall and well under one-hundred pounds in weight. Alice's own bare feet made even less noise than the Doctor's shoes as she slowly edged towards the door. She wasn't about to let the Doctor corner her... Pisca was silent in her head, tense and ready to spring like a wildcat if the Time Lord so much as poked her.

The Doctor slowly moved to the door then spun an faced her. "I never caught your name." His eyes searched her eyes for answers that weren't there. Hearing a clink sound, he glanced out of the room and walks down the stairs after the snow glob. He caught it by the front door and gripped it in his hands while he thought of all the possible answers to this. "The thing about snow globs... is depending on where they are made, shows a big difference. This one was made in Spain which means..." He removed the bottom of the snow globe. "It has a magnetic attraction...." His eyes met Alice's as he walked over to her, standing a few inches away. "Do you have an apple by any chance?" A few seconds of staring and he passed her, sitting the snow globe on a near by table. He glanced around the seemingly quiet house and inhaled a little. "Where are your parents? Did they leave you all alone? On a night like this?" The Doctor moves to a closet, scanning areas for any signs of the aliens while he spoke. "I don't understand..... I don't understand! It says they are here!" Walking back out, he went to Alice. "This is important, very important... have you ever heard strange sounds you couldn't explain? Ever feel someone watching you...? Anything out of the ordinary?" His dark green eyes were fixed on Alice's as he waited for his answers.

"Alice... Alice Robinson," she answered, having to look up as the Doctor unintentionally towered over her meek frame. After he'd wandered off again, she decided to quietly follow him, pulling on her coat as she did so. The skinny girl had started to shiver, the interior of the house being just as cold as the exterior.

"No, I don't have an apple... and they're both out on business. They're Doctors," she replied, his second barrage of questioning making her nervous. She held the back of her neck in a subconscious desire to defend Pisca, though he hadn't caught onto the Neuroparasite's presence yet. He was keeping rather quiet, waiting for the Doctor to show any sign of becoming a threat before attacking. Time Lords were so unpredictable.

"No, I haven't felt any of that. Y-You must be in the wrong place. Maybe your scanner is malfunctioning, or something."

The only alien currently in this house was Pisca, as far as Alice knew and hoped. She didn't want a confrontation with any other aliens. Pisca was plenty enough extra terrestrial company for this little human.

"You're really in the wrong place..."

The Doctor stared at Alice when she answered all his questions. He had a very serious look on his face while she spoke. It went into a soft, kind look afterwards. "Malfunctioning? Nope. I've checked the scans three times. There is something in this house... something... new... big... interesting..." Eleven smiled an excited smile for a second before ducking under a table and scanning  the wall. Knocking on the fine wood, he listened carefully for the sound of an escape. A scared alien in other words. Many did fear the Doctor whether it be from his past, present, or even future. Someone always had a reason. Reasons the Doctor never quite understood. It took the Doctor a few more knocks and a gentle touch on the wall before he came out from under the wall. He walked right up to Alice and stared down at her. "Why do you want me out of here so much? Are you hiding something?" His eyes examined her for a second before passing her once more and walking to the other side of the room.

A small squeaking sound caused the Doctor to stop. "What's that? Do you have a cat?" He walks over to a couch and climbed onto it, peering over the back of it. Out of nowhere, a small metal creature launched itself at the Doctor, knocking him down. The Doctor fought the tiny metal creature. It was no bigger than a common house cat, no smaller than a kitten. Dark blue lights blinded the Doctor as it was very bright and very close to his face. The Doctor quickly knocked off the heavy metal looking cat and it hit a wall. He removed his sonic and shot a green light at the odd creature. The creature stopped moving and altered its form into a small metal rat. A smile came onto the Doctor's lips. "There we go." He puts up the screwdriver. "Now we are making progress!" He runs over and picks up the tiny rat, moving to Alice. "How long will your parents be gone?" He glanced at her as he sat the metal rat onto the table and removed a small device from his pocket. There was a bit of work that needed to be done.

The cat leaping out and attacking the Doctor made Alice shriek, and with Alice's fear, something else rose with it. That being Pisca. His mental presence made itself known like a volcanic eruption, seeming to almost cover the room with it in a show of dominance and power. Alice quickly calmed down once the Doctor neutralized it, pulling her coat tighter around her thin shoulders.

"They'll be gone until tomorrow evening. They're taking the opportunity to see a few old friends, too. They know that sort of thing bores me," she answered after the scare was over, brushing her bangs back behind her ear, "What are you doing with that robot?"

Did she even notice Pisca's presence? Even the most psi-null of creatures would have picked up on it. She did notice his presence, but at the same time, not really. He'd been a constant in her life for almost nine years, so she was more than used to him.

A spark shot out of the small rat causing the Doctor to jump and start inspecting the object closer. When he heard Alice speak, he glanced over for a second before pulling wires out of the metal rat. "That robot? Is that what you think this is?" His green eyes stared at the object as he pulled wires out. "Humans and always believing things are just robots." A tiny explosion sent the Doctor back into the nearest wall. He quickly regained his balance and ran over, the rat was gone with no signs of it actually being there. At the same time, he heard his tardis start making strange noises. "No no no no no no no!" The Doctor quickly ran past and out to his small blue box. His tardis continued to make noises as he came up to it and unlocked its door. "No no no! Don't do this right now!" Once unlocked, he ran into the tardis and to the console that was shooting sparks at him angrily.

The tardis shook violently and shot more sparks at Doctor as he frantically tried to fix the problem. He had forgotten about what he had previously been doing or saying at the time. The only concern right now was calming down the tardis and making everything stable. Then, he'd fix the other seriously dangerous problem here on Earth and everything would be completely fine. It always was.

The mental presence suddenly retreated from the area as Pisca finally spoke, much to Alice's relief.

Alice, don't go after him!

The teenager stopped mid-run in the front door, grabbing onto the door's outer frame as the strange man with the bow tie rushed around inside the sparking blue box. She was quite concerned on multiple levels for multiple reasons, but was too afraid to go in that strange blue box. Especially because it looked much bigger on the inside. Glad that Pisca was finally being active, Alice promptly tried to get some information out of him.

Pisca, who is that man?

I don't know his name, but he's definitely a Time Lord. Four-beat pulse in his neck, that smell he gives off, and the 'bigger-on-the-inside' technology... they're a powerful species, Alice. There's not supposed to be any more of them left.

(Alice's psychic dialouge is always bold-italics. Pisca's is just italics.)

The Doctor stopped and glanced around, trying to think of what he needed. "I need..... I need-" There's a loud crash and several sparks fly out and hit Doctor. "Drive plates!" He runs under the console and searched for that. Once he had found what he needed, he started fixing the console. The Doctor stopped half way to poke his head out of the tardis. "I'm being extremely clever in here and there's no one around to see it! What's the point in having you around?" He goes back to fixing. Once things were finished, he stood up and fixed his bow tie with a smile. Without waiting a beat, he ran out to Alice. "All of time and space in my back yard.... want to see it?" He smiled. Yes, the sentence didn't make too much sense. It wasn't suppose to. The Doctor meant to say it like that to make it sound more exciting and it did sound quite exciting to him.

He flicks his wrist and glanced at his watch while he waited on Alice to reply. The Doctor moved his jaw back and forth once while he was thinking. It was just something weird he did to think. The Doctor never noticed that he did it, but he didn't really care. All he needed to know is if he had a new companion or if he was traveling alone. The monster that was hiding in Alice's house was dangerous and there were many more of them. Doctor just had to figure it all out then he could fix it. But first, he had to go to a certain place and snoop around. Then he'd come back, do some boring scans and find his monster. Maybe in the end he'd finally have another companion.... Since Amy and Rory... Things had been very quiet....

(Sorry it's not very long Alice....)