With ecstatic smiles at one another, Peyton and Amy lean forward to stare up at the TARDIS console monitor where a slightly grainy image of the Doctor waves back at them. With a laugh, the two run to the doors of the spaceship, stepping out into the bustling street.
"Welcome to London Market, you are being monitored," an omnipresent voice rolls through the market lined streets.
"We're in the future! Like, hundreds of years in the future!" Amy bursts with a wide smile, looking around at their new surroundings, far different to Amy's back garden. The marketplace has a steam-punk vibe. The dark concrete and metal are juxtaposed by the vibrant and bustling stalls selling everything from old books to brightly coloured sweets.
"This whole place is one huge spaceship?" Peyton gawks, squinting up into the polluted haze about and the blinking lights that penetrate through it. "The technology to support so many must be monumental. Spaceships filled with humanity, everyone reaching the stars."
"I've been dead for centuries," Amy realises with a hundred-yard stare.
"Oh, lovely," the Doctor rolls his eyes. "You're a cheery one. Peyton, you're my new favourite."
Peyton knows he's joking but sends a smug grin Amy's way regardless.
"She's only your favourite because she's like your space daughter," Amy scoffs. "I can't believe you're an alien and you never told me."
"Half," Peyton corrects her.
"She's not my daughter," the Doctor says spinning on the spot to look at Peyton curiously. "Just... the daughter of an old friend."
"That's been bugging me, actually," Peyton frowns. "You look barely older than the two of us, how could you have known my dad?"
"I'm older than I look, Peyton, very old," he says quietly before completely changing his tone "But never mind that. Look at this place, isn't it wrong?"
Peyton and Amy share a confused glance as the Doctor whisks himself away into the crowd.
"What's wrong?" Amy asks as the two catch up with him, still looking around in awe of the many stalls and busy citizens.
"Come on, use your eyes, notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?"
"Is it the bicycles?" Amy asks as she watches a group of teenagers fly past them. "Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles."
"Says the girl in the nightie," Peyton eyes her.
"Oh my God, I'm in my nightie," she blanches.
"Now come on, both of you, look around, actually look," the Doctor redirects their attention to his question.
Peyton stares around at the market. People milling about, goods being sold, the constant hum of everyday life happening around her. She looks up again, the smog is thinner in this part of the market and she sees that the roof is made of curved glass, showing the stars above. Beautiful.
"Life on a giant starship, back to basics, bicycles, washing lines, wind up streetlamps, but look closer." the Doctor continues as he takes them both further into the market. "Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear, a society bent out of shape on the brink of collapse, a police state. Excuse me."
The girls watch in surprise at the rapid change of tone as he dashes away, picking up a glass of water off a nearby table much to the surprise of the people sitting there. Peyton stares as he places it on the ground, looking at it suspiciously.
"Sorry," he says to the couple. "Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish.
He turns back to the two Earth girls. "Where was I?"
YOU ARE READING
The Time Lord's Apprentice
Fanfiction"But, you're impossible!" "Yeah, and the world is ending, I don't think now is the time." Peyton is an orphan, taken from her mother as an infant by the Unified Intelligence Taskforce. She is raised separately from other children because she is spec...
