If I didn't do it now, I would never get the courage to do it again. I was going outside. For the last month, I had lived inside my apartment. I had just moved to London for some crazy reason; because I felt like it. It might have been a drunken decision or a decision I made after a break up or even a lifelong dream. It didn't matter. I had moved from America to England on a whim and I was living, petrified in my flat. Sure, I made it to the corner store when I needed to get groceries, but other than that I hadn't been anywhere.

I grabbed my keys and my notebook along with my purse. I was going to visit Hyde Park. Luckily for me, Hyde Park wasn't too far a walk away from my flat. I had all the time in the world. It was my day off from work. Well, my work had just cut my hours and I was interviewing tomorrow and going to set myself up at a temp agency. It was the best I could do. You can only work from home for so long.

I was outside walking the blocks that would take me to the park. It was a nice day in the summer. The wind was only a bit chilly, but I wore my favorite blazer and I felt the comforting swish of my favorite skirt as I walked. It helped me carry my feet further.

I stood before one of the entrance trails of the park. I grasped my owl necklace tight. It shouldn't have been so incredibly intimidating, but it was. Everything had always been much too intimidating for me. But I kept walking.

An empty bench welcomed me, not too far from the Peter Pan statue. I could see it from a distance. As soon as I was seated, my notebook was out and I was writing. I had graduated from a local college in California with a degree in English-Creative Writing. Of course, my degree had taken me nowhere. What did I expect? I just became a sort of secretary anywhere I could. I helped people with running their online businesses. I did odd jobs here and there. I paid my bills and avoided debt.

But I wrote and wrote until my hands cramped and my fingers went all tingly. I wrote all my stories in a notebook first. Or I at least outlined them in a notebook. No one had accepted my stories or my novel to publish. I didn't expect them to, but there was still hope. I grabbed my unicorn braid as I sat, trying to think. My pen slapped repeatedly on the pages as I bit my lip; my process. I couldn't think.

So I got up to walk around. I made it all the way around a willow tree when I heard it. It was a strange sort of engine sound. I paid no attention to it, but instead kept walking.

The park seemed strangely vacant seeing as it was a nice day weather-wise. It reminded me of one story I had written a while ago. I found a path and started to walk along it, some gravel crunching beneath my feet.

In the distance, I saw a figure running towards my direction. I saw a green glowing light with a high pitched sound and then the person, a man, smacked right into me.

"Hey, watch where you're going. There's no one here. Are you alright?" I was lucky not to be the one that got thrown on their butt. I lent him my hand so he could stand. Taking in his appearance, I noticed one thing. "Bowtie- cool. I don't usually see people wearing bowties." The man hadn't spoken until then, but perked up at my comment.

"Yes, now, who are you and why are you in the park?" He was looking around, almost manic, but he was looking for something. Then he started looking around at my person. "That!"

The man grabbed my notebook to start looking through it.

"Excuse me; I don't even know who you are. What are you doing? Those are my personal stories. You have no right-"

"Ah-ha!" The man cut me off, pointing at one of my stories. "Here we are." He looked up at me and then back down at the book. "You're her. You're Reaux Fallion."

"Uh, that is not my name. That's my character." I grabbed back my notebook and looked at the story he was talking about. "This is my story 'The Lonely Gate', what does it have to do with anything?"

"Everything, I'm the Doctor," He took a glance around. "Now, run." He grabbed my hand and we were running through the grass past trees of all species. It was a part of the park I had never seen; never heard of. It was an unmapped area of the park, but that was impossible. Anyone with the internet could see the layout of the park. I had practically memorized it.

"Doctor, what's going on? Why are we running?" He didn't respond, just kept hold of my hand, dragging me along. Eventually we arrived at some blue phone box. He snapped and the doors opened.

"Come inside then."

"Doctor, what's going on? Why did you think my name was Reaux Fallion? Let go of my hand!" I ripped my arm from his grasp and finally took in my surroundings. "No, this is impossible." The room was a huge expanse, but I swore we had only stepped into a small blue police box. I tried to go out the doors, but they were locked.

"You won't want to go out there." He was messing with the controls I guessed. I didn't know what to call it. But it seemed to take effect, what he was doing seemed to jar and move the box.

"What do you mean I don't want to go outside? I'd very much like to get out of here." I tried to grab the door handles again and give them a shake, but the doors wouldn't budge. I decided that I wasn't going to have any luck with getting out, so I might as well enjoy the ride. I walked up to where the controls were and sat on a chair to watch the Doctor do his thing.

"Well, right now, we're flying around trying to find somewhere safe. You seem to be the topic of conversation."

"Me? Well, I'm nothing special, I just moved to London from California and I haven't really set foot out of my apartment for a month. Great day, today, I get abducted by some guy with a police box that's bigger on the inside." I sat there, examining my newly painted nails. The Doctor's movements stopped.

"Wait, who said you weren't important?" The jangling of the box had stopped and he just stood in front of me, staring.

"No one said. I just assumed. There are around 6 billion people on the planet. For every university there have to be hundreds if not thousands of people who graduate being Creative Writers, most of which are for narrative writing. I live in the city, where no one knows my name, I don't have any friends. I have a part time job and I'm going to be a temp. I'm not special."

The Doctor crossed his arms as he stood and leaned against the control panel.

"No one said you weren't special. You just assumed," He walked closer to me. "I knew a girl once, she was a temp. Best temp in Chiswick, I heard. And she was the most important woman in the universe." He grasped my hands from my lap and looked into my eyes. "No one, not one person in the world, is insignificant. Everyone has something."

"Well, you've got your special box that's bigger on the inside."

"And two hearts." He pulled me up to stand and swung our hands. I smiled.

"Two hearts, I once had two hearts. It was some complication of birth. Don't worry, they removed one. I was supposed to be part of a Siamese twin. I assume you still have both of yours."

He smiled at me. "Oh, you are more special than a birth defect Rachel." He spun me around.

"Of course, I can also say Irish wristwatch without a hitch. I'm telling you, though. That's all I have that's special."

"No, you are much more special." His face became pensive. After a few moments I swear I almost saw the light bulb go off in his head. "Of course!" He ran back to the dashboard, pressing buttons and pulling levers.

With a jolt, the whole thing seemed to stop moving. I stood still, trying to figure out what was going through the Doctor's head.

"Well then, Doctor, what now?" He paused in his run towards the door.

"Oh, yes, uh you should stay here and play around in the pool or go explore the rooms. But avoid the third door to the right in the sixth hallway. However I cannot stress how much you need to stay here."

"You kidnap me to make me stay put when you're gonna go out there and possible do something dangerous? I'm having an adventure here, like hell if I'm going to wait around."I threw off my purse, but kept my notebook as I ran up to the Doctor. "Shall we, then?"

"I can't necessarily guarantee your safety in all of this. The people who are doing this won't take meeting you lightly." He turned to me, but he could see I wasn't going to budge from my stance. "Oh, you writers and your convictions; you're gonna be the death of me." He made some motion with his hands and we both walked out the doors.

We were in some sort of dense forest. There were trees everywhere. Brown trunks reached to the heavens of green. Almost no light could break through the canopy. Purple, blue, and white flowers sprinkled the forest floors. I found a carving on one of the trees. 'RF + DL' the letters were circled in a heart. I felt the letters. They had been carved for years in the trunk of the tree. There was the faint spark of a memory from my story.

"No, no, no this cannot be possible. This has to be some sort of joke. But this is exactly how I imagined it." I ran my hands along the trees immediately around the police box.

"Rachel? Rachel, what is it?" The Doctor was also checking out surroundings. I wasn't paying attention to him anymore. I was flipping through the pages of my notebook. I had to find the story.

"Doctor, how old would you say this carving is?" I kept flipping through the book until I got to the page. The Doctor didn't answer. "The carving forever held-" I stopped because the Doctor had started to talk.

"-held the only seed of their affection as their bodies decayed and rotted under the Earth. The skies grew black and the stars burnt cold, but still the dust of the universe sang the song of their love." I looked behind my shoulder for the Doctor to be reading over it.

"How do you know that? I've never been published and I've shown no one my work since I left California. I wrote it the day I got to England. I started it on the plane." I closed the book, keeping my finger to bookmark the page. I walked around to try to find the Doctor. "How do you know about this story? How do you know about me? Doctor, you have to tell me!" I found him behind his blue box trying to look through the trees with his green blinking light.

"Why have I not found a setting for wood?" I grabbed his shoulders to turn him around.

"Doctor, whoever you are, I need answers because this is getting to be way too weird and complicated and confusing and I just want to know why you memorized my story and why that tree has their initials carved in its trunk." I was verging on hysterical as I continued on.

"We are in a forest of your imagination created by some very devoted fans of yours. These fans kidnap people and subject them to your story. They make them live it out like a real-life movie. This is the forest from your book. They have created some sort of parallel reality where your stories are king." The Doctor stood before me. I couldn't understand what he was saying.

"A parallel universe? Why? All my characters die." There was no way I could comprehend what he was saying.

"No time to say now, we have to go somewhere." I looked around. There was nowhere really to go.

"Go where?" Both of us were looking around, but he seemed to know what he was looking for. "The trees are so dense here, there is nowhere to go."

"Excuse me!" The Doctor decided it best to shout to the sky. "Would you like to meet the author?" That was when I noticed the trees started to glow. It was like they were emanating light. Then the tingly feeling started to happen.

"Doctor? What's happening? Why do I feel all prickly?" The Doctor reached for my hand. I took it, knowing that I didn't want to do this alone.

"Just stay calm, Rachel. We'll figure this all out soon." The tingling got stronger and suddenly we were in a completely different place.

"We were just transported, weren't we?" I looked to the Doctor who nodded. "And they are?" I was motioning to the creatures before us.

"Well, I haven't seen these guys in a while. Not since," The Doctor trailed off. But I pictured that something bad had happened along with the memory he was thinking of. "Either way, it's time for us to go."

Now, to tell you the truth, the next moments happened in a bit of a blur and I can't exactly describe what happened. But the Doctor spoke, asked for jammie dodgers, shouted 'Geronimo!' and then things started to spark and explode. Then we were running down and down stairs. We were in some sort of tower and then we were back in the forest. We got back to the blue police box before I could even grasp at reality.

"I think I've gone insane." The Doctor felt my head and spun me around.

"Nope, you're all here and not a scratch on you. This is fantastic." Once again he was dancing around the control panel in order to get us flying again. Or at least, I thought we were flying. "You're not insane, by the way. You're just special."

"That really puts me at ease. I'm probably just asleep in my flat dreaming right now. That's it. I'm just dreaming and haven't been to the park at all."

"You can always stick to your beliefs, but let me just tell you this. I am a traveler through space and time in this TARDIS and I've never met an insignificant human. You know, you should remember that, Reaux Fallion." He smiled. "I should take you home now." Something inside my heart broke a little. Not in the gushy romantic way, but in the way that stings of rejection and burns with understanding.

"Yeah, I would never make for very good company. You got friends that travel around with you?" His eyes sort of went to this distant place. He was thinking about someone.

"I've got tons of friends all around." He nodded and turned, not meeting my eyes. "They have someone else. But I'm fine alone."

"Alright," I sat back down. "Well, drop me home then." The same engine sound broke through the air. "So that's what I heard before."

The Doctor turned and smiled at me. "So you did." He made a few more movements. The noise stopped and I assumed all movement did as well.

"Well then," I walked towards the door. "I'll be going." I had my notebook and purse. I opened the door. I was right back in the park. Right where I had sat on a bench writing what seemed like hours or days before. I stuck my head back into the blue box, what the Doctor called the TARDIS. "You know, Doctor, if you ever get lonely and need someone. I'm not doing anything significant." He looked up from his controls.

"Imagine that, I've met Charles Dickens surrounded by ghosts at Christmas, solved a murder with Agatha Christie and fought witches with Shakespeare. I almost got killed in a library once. But imagine traveling with The Rachel Foster."

"Rachel Foster? That is not my last name." I smiled taking a tentative step into the TARDIS again. "Did you just say The Rachel Foster referring to me? And was that impressive next to Shakespeare, Agatha Christie, and Charles Dickens?"

"Oh, well I've said too much." The Doctor paused and checked the screen.

"Well, that seems to be a mistake," I smiled and opened the door again. "I should get going, again. Remember my offer."

I stepped outside and closed the door behind me. I sat down on the bench I had when I first got to the park. The engine noise sounded again and I knew the Doctor was gone. I opened my notebook and began to write.

Once upon a time, there was a man. He was known by many names, but most knew him as the Doctor. He ran. He ran far and fast. He ran even when nothing was chasing him. He ran to things and from things.

And once upon a time, there was a girl. She wasn't significant or special, but this Doctor thought she was. She didn't have anywhere to go. When the Doctor found her, she ran. Oh, how fast she ran. She followed the Doctor to nowhere in particular because he asked her to go.

And oh, the adventures they had.

I didn't-couldn't- write anymore. I closed my notebook and sat, staring at the world around me. The sky was no brighter. The grass was not softer or greener. Everything was the same. It was the same air and the same earth. I was just as ordinary as I had remembered. And I was once again the insignificant speck in a census.

Then I heard the engines.

It couldn't have been. There was no way. Was the Doctor coming back? I stayed put. And the TARDIS materialized before me. No sooner had the blue box fully appeared, than the Doctor stuck his head out the door.

"Rachel?"

"Well then Doctor, you get lonely?" I smiled and clutched my notebook close to my chest. Then I noticed something. "You look older."

"You look the same." He looked me once over. "You're wearing the same clothes. When did I leave you?"

I smiled. "You left me about a half hour ago." The look on his face was one of confusion.

"I'm getting better at this. Didn't know if I could find you again, so I figured I could come back to where I left you." The Doctor looked so proud of himself.

"You're an alien from the future and you don't have the technology to track me throughout time or something?" I smiled and he looked down. "You didn't think of it, did you," I teased.

"Perhaps not, but that is not the question. The question is: are you coming or not?" He gave off this smile like he already knew my answer.

"You already know." He held out his hand and I had no choice but to take it. I smiled as I entered the TARDIS once again. And I wouldn't be leaving it for a very long while.