My name is Melissa Hope, Mel for short. I'm a seventeen year old, five foot six tall girl with long blonde hair and green eyes. Most mornings at 5am I get up and shower, dress, and eat breakfast I would prepare the day before then make the paper rounds around the local neighborhood. About a year ago after I left school because the bullying got really bad, I got the job delivering fliers, letters, and newspapers.
Living at the end of a dead end street on the other end of town hid the house from a lot of people for the most part, and one would need to know where to go to find the house. Every town has those backstreets that rarely get visited or traveled, and it's a case of driving through town to the far end, take a seemingly abandoned road and my house is at the end hidden behind a grove of trees. When I do the early morning deliveries the sunrises are picturesque; golden rays of sun escaping over the mountain tops and touching the green grass, the trees, and everything else making them glow in the early morning light. Feeling the warmth of the morning sun is why I enjoy doing the early deliveries.
When I got the job delivering the paper and letters I had to show my boss where the house is so he could have someone drop off tomorrows papers for delivery. My shifts would vary from day to day so I could catch up on sleep for the most part; one day it's get up early and do the morning rounds which would end about 10 or 11, then I would have a nap to catch up on any sleep I lost that night.
The next day I'd normally sleep in until ten then either cycle or walk into town to the main office to begin my midday shift delivering letters and parcels, then I would get off doing that around three or four in the afternoon and head home to watch TV or play games. That would happen four days a week and then on the other three my boyfriend, Michael, and I would go out to the movies, have dinner, or just hang out. I met him one day when I had just started working for the post office. He bumped into me with his bike and made me drop a lot of the papers, ruining some. He jumped off of his bike and rushed over, managing to save a few of the papers from rolling into the gutter.
"I'm sorry, miss...?" he said.
A flush of red came over my cheeks and I looked down at the ground in embarrassment. "I'm uhm... My name is Melissa, but my mum calls me Mel."
"Hi, I'm Michael, sorry about your papers. Hold on, your mum?" he said quizzically.
I nodded with a slight pang of hurt from childhood that settled in my throat, but I cleared my throat to get rid of it. "I didn't, don't, have many friends. I got bullied a lot when I was in school because of how my eyes are." I paused and let out a held breath, speaking with a slightly depressed tone. "A lot of the kids in my classes would call me Derpy because of the lack of co-ordination caused by my eyes."
"May I see?" Michael took a step closer and brushed a lock of hair out of my face, and I shyly looked into his eyes too. He saw that one would be normal, while the other one would be looking up or down. I told him whenever I looked around, the same thing would happen with the other eye.
"Wow, that's kinda cool!" he said. "Why do they do that?"
"It's something called Strabismus." I nervously took a step back to regain some of my personal space, looking back down at the ground and shyly kicked at the odd pebble. Having a stranger that close makes me feel rather uneasy.
"What does that mean?" he inquired.
I cleared my throat and spoke with confidence toward him. "It's neurological, so no surgery can fix it. The doctors told me that my brain gets the muscle movements for my eyes mixed up, and makes them move funny. Sort of like having one wheel on a car spin faster than the other."
"Wow, you must be clever to remember that!" he beamed, sounding quite impressed.
Blushing again I looked down once more. "Not really, I just memorized it for when people asked me about it."
"Anyway, sorry about your papers. Can I make it up to you? Maybe lunch at the cafe in town tomorrow afternoon around four?"
His question stole my breath for a minute, no guy had asked me out before, but rather they picked on me in school. I just sheepishly nodded and he got back on his bike and took off down the road.
All that was about eight months ago, and we've been casually dating ever since. He's rather touchy feely a lot of the time when we hang out, but I just chalked that down to being overly playful.
After my shift ended in the afternoon I went home to my usual routine of either watching TV or playing games. Because of my eyes, it can be quite difficult to focus them on a single image, but with enough concentration I can make it work. Sometimes I'd find myself sitting in weird positions and mum would ask, "Mel, sweetie, isn't that uncomfortable? Doesn't it hurt your eyes?"
Julianne wasn't my birth mother, but I do call her mum a lot of the time although Jill slips out occasionally. She adopted me when I was two after my parents died in a house fire when I was one. At least that's what's on record. "Not really, sometimes I find it easier to look at the screen like this because of my eyes." Jill loves me to bits. Her husband died in a house fire a few years after they married and then adopted me about six months later. Sadly His body was never found.
"Well dinner is ready, are you hungry?"
"What are we having?"
"Spaghetti and meatballs, your favorite."
Mum always had a knack for making spaghetti and meatballs, and it annoyed me that she never tells me the recipe. "Well, second favorite."
She tisks and rolls her eyes humorously. "I never can figure out why you like muffins so much, and not cupcakes."
"I told you before!" I said as we both sat down at the table, as I poured the both of us a glass of orange juice. "Cupcakes are whore muffins, just dressed up fancy. Muffins taste better because they're sweet and savory at the same time, like blueberry muffins."
Mum gave her usual giggle-snort at my response. "I still think it's weird."
After dinner I finished watching cartoons and went to bed early enough so I could get up for the early morning shift. The next morning I got up a little before five, showered to help myself wake up, got the bag fulls of rolled papers and stacks of fliers and began to make the early rounds. It's a warm summers day so all I had on was my favorite grey tank top and loose, three-quarter length shorts. After I finished the rounds I stopped in at the bakery and got a couple filled rolls for Michael and I to eat. He's normally at home around this time, so I thought it would be nice to surprise him with a light breakfast for him and snack for myself, then we could cuddle on the couch and watch the Saturday morning replay of Friday nights movie.
I stopped off home to freshen up a bit and have a drink of water, getting my bag and putting the sandwiches in it with the other bits and pieces such as my phone, wallet, keys, and so on, and set off to Mike's house. It's only about a thirty minute walk from my place, and given the current weather I really don't mind the walk.
I walked up the driveway and felt my stomach flip a little in excitement in seeing him earlier than normal. When I got to the door and knocked on the door I heard some hushing, shuffling, and bumping coming from the room above the door, Mike's room. My brow furrowed in confusion as Mike answered the door wearing nothing but his shorts and standing there, breathing heavily as if he had done a massive workout. It still didn't explain why he was in his boxer shorts, though.
"Oh, Mel, I didn't know you were coming around."
"No, I thought I'd surprise you." I said with apprehension, looking over both his sweaty shoulders trying to find whoever else is in there. "What's going on in there?" My heartbeat begins to quicken its pace as my misaligned eyes try to locate the source. "Who else is here?"
"Nobody!" he quickly interjected with a hint of panic in his voice.
A voice called out from upstairs. "Mike, are you coming back to bed?"
I could feel my heartbeat quicken as if powered by a nuclear reactor, and I could feel my stomach drop with the force of an exploding hydrogen bomb. At this point I stopped functioning. My joints seized up, my brain shut off, and as much shock as I was in my jaw refused to drop, only managing to uselessly twitch in a fruitless attempt to form words. The guilty look on his face said it all; he knew perfectly well he got busted.
"I... What?" escaped from my mouth in what seemed like an eternity of standing on the porch, the emotions beginning to show on my face; sadness in my ridiculous eyes, the feeling of worthlessness tugging at my heartstrings, and the worst one of all? After all those years of being picked on, I thought I finally found someone who cared about me. But I guess not. After all, who would?
The voice that called out from upstairs appeared at the top of the staircase with long curly brunette tossed everywhere, like bed head, wearing a shirt that was obviously too big but that was hastily put on to cover up everything else. She stopped, looking down on us from her position atop the stairs as Mike turned his head to look at this woman as if to say This isn't what it looks like! But she wasn't having it.
"Seriously? I mean really? That 'tard?"
The bomb just exploded, washing me with nauseating memories of people calling me retarded. I wanted to do so many things right now, attack what I thought was my boyfriend, collapse crying, [and I know this is just the epitome of emotional build up] and die.
I did what came to mind, but it was autonomous rather than choice. I simply turned and walked in the other direction, back in the direction of home.
"Mel, wait!" called Michael.
I didn't turn back, I didn't talk, I turned my back on him and just kept walking. That's what I could do, walk and keep walking until I collapse and not wake up. My mind was still flooded with a million thoughts, and I didn't know how to deal with them. Is this what an anxiety attack feels like? It's the worst thing ever.
I just kept walking until I got home, dumping my bag with the sandwiches in it in the doorway in the middle of the floor, not caring about anything else at the moment. I walked into my room, kicked off my shoes, collapsed onto the bed with the full weight and realization of everything hit me. I started crying, burying my face in the pillow until it got soaked with tears. I don't know when, but at some point I passed out from either crying too much, or just simple tiredness.
I woke up and looked at my bedside clock showing it to be 1:30 in the afternoon. Mum would be home from work at five, and I wanted to try and compose myself from what happened a few hours before. Our house has a wood burner that heats the water in the water tank because it's not electrically heated, so I thought it would be a nice idea to restock the wood and light the boiler so mum can have a hot shower, and chopping wood would be a nice release of anger by doing something destructive in a constructive manner.
I've found out the hard way holding the log with my hand then bringing the hatchet down doesn't do too many favours for my fingers. I've still got them all, but there's been some pretty close calls so I've resorted to holding the log steady with a smaller branch then splitting the log. Half way through filling up the wood bucket to take it inside I hear an odd noise, almost like a wheezing old man has taken their front door key and tortured piano strings with it. It's sickening in a sense, like whatever is making the noise is diseased. I sink the hatchet into the log to hold it, then venture out of the little wood shed towards the sound of the noise emanating from the grove of trees behind the house.
Just to make sure there isn't anything, I walk several meters into the trees in an attempt to find the source of the noise. After walking around for ten minutes and stumbling over some branches and logs but not finding anything, I make my way back toward the house. When I clear the crunching of the sticks of the grove of trees and step out onto the grass, the crunching still continues. Turning to look back, attempting to focus my eyes on the trees I hear more cracking.
Is something following me?
I stand looking at the trees, hearing the odd cracking sound getting progressively closer to me. Not knowing what's coming, I retreat back into the house through the back door that's adjacent to the woodshed and look out the little window, straining my eyes on the treeline. Soon enough a small figure emerges out of the trees and collapses onto the grass. I open the door and rush out to see what the matter is, and half way across the yard it gets up and stumbles forward, clearly hurt. From my position across the yard I can see a small chestnut brown creature standing about eighteen inches tall, and when I finally reach it I can see it to be some sort of baby horse with a darker brown mane, and an odd looking thing with a blue light at one end clenched between his teeth.
"Hey there little guy, where did you come from?" I quietly asked, kneeling down beside... him? Yeah, it's a boy alright.
I put my hands under to lift the... Is it a small horse or a pony? I'll just go with pony. I lift him up to carry him inside but winced as if something I'm putting pressure got bruised and it would make sense since I'm lifting him up with arms underneath his ribs. I take the poor thing inside and settle him down in my place on the sofa in the lounge, taking the weird looking thing from his mouth and placing it on the coffee table. I carefully slide a cushion underneath his head and went to the freezer to pull out a bag of frozen peas, wrapping it up in a tea-towel and putting it on his ribs.
That seemed to quell the problem for now. I don't know what it is that's wrong, but I don't think it's more than a bruised rib or two, otherwise he would have been in substantially more pain. The thing that I find weird about this whole situation as I'm sitting here with a pastel chestnut-brown pony laying on my couch that came stumbling out of the forest with a weird tool in his teeth, is that I don't know why but I've got a sense of Deja-Vu around whomever or whatever this thing is supposed to be.
I leave the poor thing on the couch resting with his head on the couch cushion while I go light the boiler and finish cutting the wood as a nice surprise for mum. Not too long after I finished doing that and settled down to watch the afternoon cartoon with the little pony, who's still asleep, but putting the semi-thawed bag of peas back into the fridge so they don't go off, I hear mums car pull up in the driveway, get out, and come in the front door with a bit of shopping as she sets it down on the counter just inside the kitchen door.
"Hey sweetie, how was your day?" she asked. With the memory of earlier still fresh in my mind and not wanting to show that I'm upset about it, I just feigned being better by putting on a chipper tone and responding with "I'm fine, and I found something interesting in the grove of trees behind the house."
"Oh yeah?" she asks with a raised eyebrow as she walks around to talk to me face to face. "And what wou-" her sentence stopped mid flow as she saw the little pony laying on the couch, seeming dumbfounded to see the creature laying next to me.
"W- where did that come from? What is it?!"
"I just said, I found it in the grove of trees behind the house." I answered calmly.
"Mel, darling, you can't keep a horse in the house!"
"Pony." I countered
"Pony, right."
"And I don't plan on it either." I continued, trying to focus my stray eye on mum. "He was hurt, I put him on the couch to rest with some frozen peas on what I thought was his bruised ribs." I added, folding my arms in both pride and defense of my actions.
Jill's expression softened as she heard why this thing is on her couch, and a small smile formed on her lips. "Alright then. I supposed it can't do any harm to let him rest up, then when he's better we'll take him to someone who will know what to do with the wee thing."
If I had ears like this adorable little thing, they'd be plastered against the side of my head in sadness.
"Oh come on," mum protested. "don't give me that look, we can't keep it!"
"Why not?" I asked, a confident smile forming on my face for the upcoming response.
"To begin with we have nowhere to keep it, and nothing to feed it with."
I cleared my throat and asserted myself. "I've got enough money saved to buy some food and one of those large pet beds for dogs, for him, and whatever else he may need in the future." After finishing my sentence, mum just stood there looking down at me with what could be described as a defeated look on her face. "We can also keep him in the yard as well." She let out a long held breath before speaking.
"Ok, I've got no problem with that." she answered calmly. "But he's your responsibility, it's up to you to take care of him."
I squeed, making a noise that sounded like a deflating balloon and jumping up and throwing my arms around mum. "Honestly, how could you say no to something as cute as that, eh?" I said, gesturing with a nod toward the pony on the couch.
Mum laughed under her breath a little. "Yeah, he is pretty cute. Just think what he must be like all poofy like after a shower."
I made the sound of a deflating balloon at the thought of him being all poofy, and now that I think about it he does look a little dirty from coming out of the trees so this would be a good opportunity to find out. But maybe I was just trying to use that as an excuse to find out because deep down everyone wants to see cute fluffy things, and lets face it who wouldn't want to? You can't pass up something like that without your heart skipping beats.
I sat back down on the couch with the still sleeping colt stroking him until he started to stir, making a little groaning noise. A puzzled look came across my face, something that vocal struck me as very odd because it seems too advanced for an equine creature.
"Just take it easy little guy, you're in my house. I found you outside, you were hurt so I took care of you. Now it's time for a bath, so just stay calm while I carry you into the bathroom." He seemed to relax a little bit, so I scooped him up and and carried him into the bathroom where I set the colt down in the tub and ran the warm water until it's a few inches and he can stand up in the water. I don't know if any of the products we have like the shampoos and body washes are any good, so I just opt to use a regular bar of soap on the fur, and massage the suds in to clean his skin too.
Working up a good lather on the coat, and even though he probably can't understand me, talking seems a good thing to try and break the ice. So to speak. "So little guy, what's your name?" I give a humored huff under my breath. "Listen to me, you probably can't even understand me."
"Doctor."
Time seemed to stop. Hearing a word spoken when there's only two of us in here, and I know it wasn't me left me stunned.
"Did... did you just talk?" I said, staring at his face.
The pony shook his head and I momentarily went back to cleaning him. A minute afterwards, it dawns. "Wait a minute, you understood me! I asked if you understood me, and you shook your head, so you DID understand what I said!"
He shook his head again.
"See, you did it again! Come on little guy, you can tell me."
"Please don't tell anyone else."
My eyes widened in shock and my breathing momentarily ceased at hearing this... I don't even know what to call it anymore, speak. His voice sounded sounded like that of an Englishman, but with a more childlike tone to it. Given the age of him, I wouldn't say that much is worth questioning. My mind is reeling with what to ask next, and then realize I didn't quite catch his name when he said it the first time.
"What did you say your name is?"
"Doctor." he replied.
"Uhm, ok?" I said with some confusion as I squeezed out a wet towel over his fur to wash the soap bubbles off of him. "Why Doctor?"
The child-like English voice spoke more clearly this time. "It's the name I chose for myself."
I cocked my head as if to say whatever, not wanting to question him right now "Alright, time to hop out now, Doctor." I lay out a towel on the floor of the bathroom to catch the water dripping off the colt, and lift him out of the deep tub onto the towel, using another to dry him off.
"So, how did you get here anyway?"
"The TARDIS." the Doctor said flatly.
"The what now?"