She was sitting on the other side of the room when I went to visit her, her wheelchair old and inefficient, just like the place where she is staying. I disagree completely with the place she is in, but all the same there isn't that much I can do about it, so I decide to take it like a spoon of salt, bitter but at the same time, and with a cup of water later, tolerable. She is unattended, again I hate seeing that, but all the same I'd rather have her alone to talk to than have someone looking over her shoulder. Her eyes are planted to the window in front of her, looking out to the horridly boring world outside that is made of the same shades of grey, over and over again. I sit down next to her in the creaky chair that is offered, and it takes her much longer than it really should for her to notice me completely. But when she does, she smiles, and while I feel so much better in that action, I can tell that it's fake, a smile you give to strangers at the bank.

"Hello young man, do you know what the time is?" I look at my watch and politely give her the time, and she nods in thanks, her heavy head not turning back to the window just yet, as she apparently gets that I'm here for a reason, and have something to tell her, or something to do that has connections with her. I look down at the book in my hands, the cover old and picked apart in paces, but all the same it is thick with yellow shaded paper, some pages poking out in awkward places. One wouldn't know that it was loved if it weren't for the pages and pages filled with words, words that were more powerful than anyone would have ever realized.

"Do you need anything?" That was so much like her, asking a question that others would usually ask in annoyance, but genuine interest and care. I smile back at her and nod, words stuck in my throat and lodged deep into my system as was left to collect them form the pit of my stomach, where they had fallen, and speak my reply. There's no one else in the room, and I had locked the door behind me in order to make sure there wasn't any interruptions any more, as I wanted to do this now, or I might never try to do this ever again. I held the book in tighter hands, feeling some of the ancient wayward pages cut into my calloused hands as I spoke, trying my best not to sound to emotional.

"I have a story to tell you, it's a long one so you might want to remember it as I need to come back every so often to continue it, it's that lengthy." She nodded, looking a bit more excited than she should have in all honesty, but all the same it took weight and fear off of my shoulders to see her so happy, the years seemingly peeling off of her at the smile, the genuine smile, on her face. I released my tight grip on the book, and opened the front cover, seeing the familiar pen writing on the very first page was almost like relieving the world I use to have, the memories and the times that were so far away right now.

"Is it a good story?" I wanted to say that yes, it was a good story, that there was nothing but good times in between these pages, but I'm not a liar, my mother didn't raise me that way. And I couldn't lie to this woman sitting next to me, who looked so alone and tired of the world she lived in, day after day, at least the days she could apparently remember. So I told the truth, but her face didn't fall, if anything, I think she was listening only more intensely, more interested in what this story contained. Perhaps there had been stories told to her here before, and all of them were too filled with good times for her liking, which would explain why she was only more interested in what was in the book I was holding.

"It is sometimes, other times its not, but I guarantee you that it is genuine, and it is real. It's a story about a man, a girl, and a strange blue box. And this is how it starts…"

Her name is Lorraine Sanford, and she's only 8 at this time. She's small for her age, so people mistake her for being much younger, something she dislikes immensely and at times would scrunch up her face in a funny way and walk off at the thought of being called a baby. However, whenever her parents called her a baby, she seemed to let it slide much easier than usual, possibly because they give her candy at the times when they call her that. Her hair was blonde, but looked as though it was going to turn brown someday; already it was a bit darker than it was only a year ago. Her eyes also held an ideal to that fact as they were a dark green.

She could never really run that fast, so she wasn't a very sporty child, unlike her friends and neighbors who would play soccer every day in the park near her house. She could always hear their happy laughter as they ran all over the place, just basically having a much better time than she ever seemed to. See, Lorraine was a very sickly child at best when she was this young, so her parents never really let her out to play. So she would be left to look out the window and wave to her friends from school whenever they saw her looking down to them.

Lorraine's parents weren't mean, weren't abusive, they never even yelled at her really, they were nice and caring. They hated keeping her cooped up in the house, away from her friends and away from the sunlight basically, sometimes she would hear her mother cry to her father, saying that she didn't want to do this, that she felt horrid inside. But Lorraine didn't understand, so she would cry to, and say that she was sorry that she got so sick at times, and would make her mother feel horrid, or even a little bad. They would cry to each other, and hold each other tight at the nights that she would feel her worst, so she was closer to her parents than most of the kids she knew.

It was a good life she had had for those first eight years, for as much as she could remember it was certainly the best of her memories that she had in her life all at one time. Her father wasn't a drinker, he didn't abandon them, didn't leave her mother's side or love for one second, he was a good man and great father. Her mother was just as much of a good woman as well, never letting her daughter or husband go through hardships alone, always being there to love her family and be there for them when they needed a shoulder to cry on. She was a strong person, someone Lorraine always wanted, and dreamed of being when she was older.

But that all changed on that day, the day the metal men attacked their home.

1962

On that day she was feeling exceptionally healthy and good, so her parents wanted to have a nice dinner to celebrate that fact. She was upstairs in the bathroom, washing her hands in preparation for roast that she wanted to help her mother make. Her father had just come home from work, so she abandoned the bathroom and ran down the stairs to jump into his open arms, just as she did every other day when he came home. They all laughed, having a good time as dinner was still cooking in the oven nearby. Her father carried her into the dining room, asking her to help him set the table while her mother finished off the food.

It was while they were both setting up the table and talking about their day, Lorraine being the chatterbox, so she had a lot to say, that a crash came from the hallway not that far away from them. Her father wasted no time, telling his daughter to hide under the table while he went to check out what was going on. Sure, they lived in a decent enough Neighborhood, but that didn't mean that things couldn't happen. Lorraine immediately did as her father said and hid under the pale white sheet, sneaking a peek through the slight gap between the long table cloth and the floor as she watched and waited for her father to return.

Instead what she heard was a horrible scream, echoing through her ears and stapling into her mind forever, as she knew her father's voice when she heard it, and that was his scream. Thinking that it must have been a joke of some kind or something, Lorraine crawled out from under the table cloth and looked around the corner to where she would have full view of the hallway. What she saw however, was the crumpled form of her father, and her mother running in the hallway to see the same sight, and screamed at the figure standing in the doorway. It was a man, made of metal with handles on his head, a strange gun in his hands as he wasted no time and tried to shoot at her mother as well.

The strange metal man missed at first, hitting the wall right next to her mother's head, and she screamed, backing away, and finally catching sight of her daughter, looking up at her in both fear and confusion. For the few seconds that her mother got left to have in this life before the strange metal man didn't miss the second time and shot her down for good, she screamed at her daughter. The words she said, just like her father's last and final scream, being imprinted in her brain forever as not a second later, her mother crumpled to the ground and moved no more, right at her daughter's feet.

"Run Lorraine baby, run!"

Tears pricked at her eyes, her face blank as she tried to figure out what had just happened, her world being flipped upside down right then and there. So it wasn't until she looked back up at the metal man, which had finally noticed her and was turning to shoot her as well, that her mother's words finally made sense, so she turned form the horrific sight of her parent's unmoving bodies on the floor and ran to the back door, slamming it open and running faster than she ever had in her life. As soon as she ran out into the fading sunlight, she saw more metal men everywhere, prowling the streets, coming out of the sewer holes in the roads. It was a terrifying sight, so she didn't stop running, no matter how many times she fell over in the street, she never stopped, hearing screaming and crying behind her as she went on and on, never looking back in fear of what she would see.

"That sounds like a terrible beginning," She shook her head sadly, each movement feeling like an ancient effort on her part, her smile having disappeared into a sad, heavy frown that was etched deeply into her face. I hated seeing her frown, but at the same time this was in the story, and I had promised to tell the whole truth, and everything that was in there exactly like it was written, so I had to swallow that feeling of guilt ad carry on, though my voice did have that partial tone of apology mixed in as I replied to her comment, my hands not closing the book just yet, despite how much I really wanted that to happen, there was still many, many pages in here before it would lead to better times again, but I didn't want to tell her that just yet.

"I know, but that's how it happened…Do you want me to continue, because we can stop now if you want?"Nothing was said after that, but she shook her head slowly, looking back from the window where she had been staring out of while making her comment, looking back to me as she waited for me to continue the story, so I picked right back up. Sure it was true that there wasn't that much happier times ahead in this story, but at least there was a small spark of hope on the next page, and that was good enough from me. And by the look on her face I went on, it was obvious that it made her feel much better to, which did make it easier to read on as the pages continued.

At some point she had to stop running, as she fell down again, this time right on her face. She didn't get back up, instead staying lying in the dirt, crying over the life and the world she had lost, the world she wanted to go back to so bad. She wanted to run home again and find her parents still there, still alive and having dinner, waiting for her and happy to see her. But she wasn't that naive, wasn't that young or innocent, not anymore. So she stayed there for what felt like forever, ignored by the world in those moments as she cried and cried with no care of how loud she was being.

However, because she was being so loud in her misery, that eventually she caught the attention of some people that were just wondering past. Immediately they stopped, Lorraine having gone silent in her tears as soon as she heard their footsteps approaching her. Thinking that it was the metal men coming back to get her to, she jumped to her feet and backed away in fear, her back accidentally roughly hitting the brick wall, causing her to fall back so she was on her backside, sobbing pitifully as she looked up at the figures in front of her, expecting them to be the nightmarish metal men.

But that was not the case; in fact, standing in front of her was the strangest people she had seen, apart from the scary metal men of course. These people however, were not scary to her, in fact if anything she felt somehow safe with them standing in front of her than she had all day. One of them was Scottish, as she remembered learning in her class a few weeks ago, as he was wearing a strange skirt and spoke in a way that she hadn't really heard before, apart from on the radio. He was looking to the man next to him at times, who seemed to reminded her of the nice records that her mother liked to listen to, as his hair did look like the ones on the cardboard covers.

"Are ya all right lass?" The Scotsman muttered to her, before he turned back to look at his apparent friend, who was moving closer to her than he was, scaring the poor girl as she tried to back away, still sobbing uncontrollably, her whole body shaking with each intake of breath. The strange man with the haircut was kneeling to her level, holding out a rag that was in his black coat pocket to her to wipe her tears with. She was hesitant however, curling in on herself as she tried her best to stay away from the man, who was speaking softly to her, trying to calm her enough to trust him and take the offered rag.

"It's alright, we're not going to hurt you, and we want to help." There was a moment in which nothing happened, Lorraine adding things up in her head, weighing risks and such, before she eventually relented and held her hand out, taking the rag and wiping her eyes. The man smiled, and moved a little closer, sitting next to her by the wall cross legged, and gestured for his friend to sit on her other side. The Scotsman looked to his friend for a moment before doing as he said and stayed quiet while he talked to her, his voice calm and soothing in the already horrid situation she was in, making her feel at least a little better.

"Now, I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend Jamie, what's your name?" Lorraine looked over at the Scotsman as he was introduced to her, and he gave her a small smile in an attempt to make her feel better. She sniffed a few times but managed a crooked smile back before looking back to the Doctor, wondering on whether or not she should tell him that Doctor, at least as her grandmother use to say, was not a real name. But she figured that was a little rude, especially since he was nice enough to give her the rag to wipe her face and sit next to her. She replied to the question after a time, her voice small and cracked thanks to her sobbing.

"L-Lorraine," She sniffed, wiping her eyes again with the already soaked through rag. Lorraine did try to offer it back to the strange Doctor man, but he shook his head and closed her open hand with the hanky inside it, obviously telling her to keep the hanky as he gently patted her hand. After drawing her hand back in to hug herself, the Doctor decided to ask her another question, but was interrupted by Jamie suddenly asking a question out of nowhere, breaking the period of silence he had made and disrupting Lorraine's own peace of mind as well, as she started sobbing heavier again. After seeing her reaction to the question, the Doctor man gave his friend a look that obviously stated how he shouldn't have done that before having to look back at her as she talked again.

"Where are ye parents lass?"

"They- … There were strange metal men in our house, and they made father scream and fall over. He wouldn't get up and Mother told me to run before she fell down to. I ran away like she said to, but I don't know where to go now…" She started sobbing so much that it cutted off her words and she was left to draw her knees up to her chest, and bury her head away from them both, crying all over again, knowing full well that her parents had not just 'fallen over,' but where gone for good and never coming back. The doctor slung his arm over her shoulders and pulled her into a genuine hug, despite how much it must have looked awkward to anyone else. But she didn't care all that much, just being happy that someone was comforting her, so she let her tears drench his blue checkered shirt as much as they had the soaked through hanky in her tight grip.

"There, there, everything's going to be alright," they were lies, he knew, even she knew that, but all the same there wasn't much else he could say that he knew of to make her feel better. Jamie did try asking the Doctor on what they should do next, as it was obvious that they couldn't leave her on her own, but all the same where they were heading, was no safe place for a girl like her, especially since she had been through too much today. However the strange man seemed a bit too preoccupied with the bawling child in his arms, instead trying to give her comfort while rocking her back and forth, muttering words of comfort that he knew he couldn't do, sometimes looking up to his companion while he tried to think of a better answer to give the Scotsman, other than the one he gave of course.

"We have no choice Jamie, the city is crawling with them and we can't leave her on her own. UNIT can keep her safe and away from them until this is all over, I hope." He tried whispering so she wouldn't hear, but all the same she was sobbing rather loudly so it wasn't as if she could hear him if she tried or wanted to. Jamie nodded in understanding and gently rubbed Lorraine's back in an attempt to comfort her in his own way, feeling her back shake with each cry she managed to let out of herself. They didn't get to have this moment for long however, as an explosion went off not that far away from their position. Lorraine even lifted her head to look in the direction of the explosion, seeing nothing but a column of dark smoke starting to rise into the air.

"We have to go, now," The strange Doctor man said quickly, picking up Lorraine bridal style without another word, and running off in the other direction of the smoke, Jamie following after him as they ran. Lorraine said nothing, instead holding on tight to the materials on the man's coat and shirt, her head pressed tightly against his chest, where she heard the strangest thing. Perhaps it was her just being upset and hearing things, but the little girl swore she could hear two quick heart beats inside the Doctor's chest. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, but she said nothing of it, instead focusing on burying her head as much as she could in his shirt in order to avoid seeing anymore metal men that might be around them.

Her tears had not dried fully, a few or more managing to squeeze their way out of her eyes as they ran on and on through the empty streets of London, heading somewhere that hopefully would mean safety for them all. She tried to focus on the heavy breathing and weird heartbeats of the man that was carrying, but found it hard what with the sudden appearance of army cars everywhere and soldiers talking to him, trying to convince him to give her over to them to take care of. But she was desperate to stay with him, since she knew him and the Scotsman more than these strangers, and wanted to stay by him, as he meant safety to her right now, more than anything.

Whenever foreign hands tried to grab at her and pull her away from him, her grip would tighten as she cried out to be left alone and to stop trying to take her away. The Doctor didn't seem all that bothered in carrying her around, but there was a problem when she was adamant in not letting go of his shirt and coat, and he knew he was going to go somewhere that was definitely not meant for a child like her, so he had to try and calmly convince her to not only let go, but calm down. There was also a problem that she did start kicking at the hands that tried to take her away, so they backed off eventually and she was left to listen to the Doctor's words.

"Lorraine, everything's going to be okay, I have to go but I'll be right back. For now you have to stay here with them, and be a good girl okay?" Eventually Lorraine stopped freaking out and slowly nodded, eventually letting the soldier that she had accidentally almost kicked in the face take her from the Doctor, and continued to cry as she saw him and Jamie walk away. The soldier quietly sat her in the back of an ambulance, giving her a blanket and a mug of some kind of warm milk drink, and walked off, telling her to stay there while he went to get someone else. At first Lorraine sat there and waited like she was asked, remembering that the Doctor had asked her to be a good girl, so she did as she was told, and even tried to stop crying, despite the fact that it was hard to stop, the tear tracks continuing down her face despite her best attempts.

The drink tasted vaguely of chocolate, but then again only vaguely so Lorraine politely placed it to the side of her, looking out around her as she held the blanket tighter to herself. No one came back to check on her for a long time, so eventually she guessed that she was supposed to go and find someone herself to talk to, or at least know where the Doctor and Jamie went. As she walked through the empty alley ways, she noticed that the army cars she walked past that were once filled with soldiers was empty. She walked a little bit further, but immediately stopped when she saw what was up ahead.

It was the metal men again, and she turned and ran in the other direction, thinking for a moment on whether or not she should hide in the ambulance again, but eventually she decided against it as she wanted to hide right then and there, the sounds of marching behind her telling her how close they were getting. Eventually she went and hid underneath one of the many army cars and prayed that she wasn't going to be found by the horrid metal men where she was now, shaking and sobbing quietly to herself as she waited for whatever was going to happen. There was shouting not that far away, but that didn't last long in her attentions as she saw metal feet stop exactly where she was hiding…

"And, what happened next?" She asked me, attempting to peer at the page in question, but I beat her to it by closing the book altogether, my finger placed in the pages to remember where it was I had left off. I gave her a short smile and stood from my seat, giving her a bow and speaking as quickly as I could, knowing that at some point the hospital was going to notice the locked door and not allow me to see her again and continue this story. I was backing away with every step, the book held behind my back as I stepped widely back with every word I spoke, desperate to quickly leave before my time ran out for real.

"Well, that will have to wait until tomorrow okay? See, the time is running out and I have to go, but like I said, I'll be back tomorrow so, remember everything that's happened already okay?" I smiled cheeringly at her and left, making sure to unlock the door as I went, trying to keep the 'I'm okay' façade until I exited the building altogether, taking a deep sigh as I looked to my watch again, (well a few more times than usual,) and then walked on over to my parked car, already waiting impatiently for tomorrow when I'd get to see her again.

Please review, constructive criticism always welcome.

By the way, the time in this story isn't really going to measure up canonically, so really in that aspect I'm making up that this took place in 1962, and almost every other time piece that isn't directly specified in the show.