Life, Love and Death through Time and Space

Prologue

by

Sabrina Lonewalker

Grace Holloway, a beautiful, brilliant cardiac surgeon was sitting on the front step of her place in San Francisco with a mug of coffee but was staring up into the sky, the coffee getting cold in her hand. Where she lived the stars were visible in the clear night sky and she was looking in one direction, towards a planet barely visible to the naked eye.

She smiled as she thought about the mysterious man who had showed it to her. He said that it was his home, a planet called 'Gallifrey'. He had been a patient, a slightly crazy patient she thought at the time then, he had become a friend and then, he was the man she loved but, she had never told him how she really felt and when he left, she didn't go with him. She wondered why now. He had asked her to come with him but, she had said no. He was simply called "The Doctor" and he wasn't human. She had discovered that quickly when he had been brought in, a gunshot victim.

She had been at the opera with her then boyfriend, Brad and the irritation on his face when her emergency pager went off had spoken volumes about how he felt about her job. She had told him that she was the surgeon on call that night but, he had not disguised how upset he was. She had left and gone to the hospital, running down the hallway in full formal dress drawing stares from patients and visitors as she ran.

In surgery, the man on the table was trying to tell her something but, she couldn't hear. Then, all hell broke loose. He was put under but then, he began difilberating. They tried the paddles but it got worse. She inserted a cardiac probe but, he died. She had then gone to her office and stared at the x-ray that showed the twin hearts he had.

The Chief of Surgery burned the x-ray and was determined to blame her for what had happened. Then, the young man who had come in with him ran and she had no means to identify her mystery patient. To make matters even worse, his body later disappeared from the morgue!

She packed up her office after resigning and headed for the elevator. There, a man joined her. He had long, wavy brownish red hair, light eyes, and was dressed in what you could almost call an outfit straight out of Charles Dickens, apple green frock coat, an ascot and silk shirt, slightly baggy trousers but at the time she hadn't noticed he was barefoot.

In the parking garage, he began talking to her as if he knew her but, she had no clue at the time that he had been her patient. Then, she got into her SUV and he was in the backseat trying to explain about the surgery and then, her eyes widened as he pulled the cardiac probe she had left inside out of his chest then, she saw fear on his face, pure fear, it was in his voice and in his eyes.

Then, in a commanding tone, he had told her to "DRIVE!". She had, all the way to her house. He came in with her and was obviously suffering from memory loss. He had no idea as to what his name was or what he did. She pulled out her stethoscope and found she had not been mistaken, that he did have two hearts. She found him a pair of shoes after she discovered that Brad had moved out.

This man had said somethings to her that made her think. He seemed to know why she had become a doctor, a surgeon. He had it right, she wanted to hold back death and sometimes, she succeeded but more often than not, she couldn't change what was happening. It hurt her remembering those times but, she had pushed those feeling down and went on looking for those shoes Once this mystery man had settled down enough to talk, he and Grace had gone out into the park that was nearby. It was December 29th, 1999. Grace had no idae what she was in for.

Begin Part One