[This is the beginning of a little story that’s been on my mind for a while now, I’m not exactly sure where its going to go after this point… any ideas?] Professor Bernice S Summerfield woke up but didn’t open her eyes right away. She somehow knew she wasn’t in the same bed she had fallen asleep in. In her far too common experience when waking in unfamilaur places it was best to pretend to be asleep while she worked out what the hell was going on. So she kept her eyes shut. Then again in her experience it was rare to wake up in such an incredibly comfortable bed. She realized there was something familure about this place after all. She had the sense of being at home in her bedroom. This was odd as she hadn’t had anything she would call her bedroom (or even a home) for more than ten years. She finally figured it was the noise of the room that sounded familure, even comfortaing.
Her eyes snapped open. ‘Oh no. No. No. No. What’s he done to me this time. Cruck.’ she mumbled into the pillow. She rolled out of bed, her feet perfect fitting into the pair of slippers that were positioned on the floor exaclty where they always were. She looked around the room, it was about twenty years since she had been here, she wondered how long it had been for the room. She stood in front of the dresser and looked at her reflection. A 54 and three quarters year old woman wearing an oversized blue-green hyper-color t-shirt, looking both older and younger than she was. The t-shirt wasn’t very flattering but it matched the “Pinkachoo” slippers. She shrugged her shoulders, twirled her hair and headed out of the room. The hallway outside had changed, the sterile white replaced with cool grey stone. She went right, she always went right, left never seemed the way to go. The corridor went slowly down and curved to the left. Every few meters a stone archway pretened to hold up the ceiling, with burning torches on the wall every meter adding to the sudo-medieval feel. But she knew better than to trust the looks of this place. She passes closed doors that didn’t seem to be where she wanted to go. She knew she was being guided and just let it happen. After a while the corridor ended at a large set of double wooden doors. She pushed them open and walked out across a wooden suspension bridge that spanned a black casam. On the far side of the bridge another set of doors lead to a spiral staircase. She went up. Ocassionally she passed a landing with a closed door. She stopped at a door that was in no way different from any of the ones she had already walked by. But this one felt like the one to open. She pushed it open and walked into a room filled with a wheat field. The sun shone down on her face, it was a beautiful summers day. She suddenly wished she had bothered to get dressed. She held her hand up to shade her eyes and looked out across the field. He was there, standing a short way off in a small clearing, he was wearing a large ffloppy straw hat, his shirt sleaves rolled up above his elbows, a light earth toned vest, brown slacks and work boots. All very pastrol. He looked up from his work towards Bernice, even from the distance she could see his face break into a broad, sincere smile. He waved at her warmly. She walked out into the field to join him. A gentle wind played over the field making pockets of the crop dip and twist and sway. She was enjoing the contrast between the warm sun lite field and the cool tourch lite corridors outside. As she walked up to the man he put down his tools and gave her a big hug. It was like hugging your favorite uncle. ‘Hello Benny, its good to see you again.’ She had always liked this version of him, he was eaiser to read, he radiated honesty, trust, joy, happiness, good feelings. She couldn’t help smile and the angry opening line she had been planing to say to him disappeared, instead she simply said; ‘Hi.’ He took a step back and looked her up and down, then smiled again. ‘So,’ she asked, ‘what’s with the wheat?’ ‘I was in the mood for making some bread,’ he replied. She couldn’t tell if the thought of buying some floor had simply not occured to him, or if he thought that would be ceathing in some way. It didn’t really make much difference. He waved his hand and indicated they should head back to the door. ‘So, what have you kidnapped me for this time?’ she asked as they walked. He stopped short. ‘Kidnapped? I haven’t done anything of the sort! We are still on Ploddus-3, infact the TARDIS is parked about five meters from you tent. I just thought you might find your old bed more comfortable to sleeping on the ground.’ All the remaining anger faded away, he hadn’t done anything silly. Well he had done something silly, but he was being nice, he hadn’t wisked her off to far away times and places. They stopped by the scare-crow so he could give it back it’s hat and collect his jacket. Then the continued through the door and back into the corridors. It was a different corridor to the one Bernice had use to enter the field, even though it had been the same door. Neither one of them was surprised. ‘So your just visiting then?’ she asked carefully. They walked on, he was leading the way past a few turns and then through a door. ‘Yes, unless there was somewhere you wanted to go, but first I think its time for breakfast,’ he said as they enterd the room. The dinning room was larger than it had been, with a nice long table in the center and food dispencers on both the left and right walls. He dialed up a generous fried breakfast for Bernice, and a pot of tea for himself and they sat and ate. After a while, and once Bernice was feeling more satisifed, she answered his question; ‘No, I don’t think there is anywhere I want to go. Well, no where that I can’t get too on my own, but thanks for the offer.’ She looked up the length of the table, it seemed large enough to seat tweanty with room to spare. ‘Travelling alone now-a-days?’ she asked as she sipped her tea. ‘Funny you should ask, no, I’ve got a full crew at the moment.’ ‘And just how many people conprise the “full crew” of an infinatley large time-space vechile?’ He blinked. ‘Er, for a type 40?’ he started counting on his fingers, ‘six Time Lords if I remember the specs right. But that’s not what I meant. About a year ago I stumbled across a science vessel that was in a spot of trouble with the Zerg, I rescued the crew and the Zerg destoried the vessel. I keep offering to drop them off somewhere but they seem happy to just travel for the moment.’ Bernice looked at her old friend in frank surprise, somewhere in this ship there could be anywhere up to 10,000 people depending of the crew size of the original vessel. ‘Fourteen,’ he said, realising what she was thinking. ‘I’ve grown rather found of them too, there all very nice people. Its different actually having a large group on board. I hope you get a chance to meet some of them.’ [While I welcome any comments, also please bear in mind this is a draft, so stick to plot, character type stuff instead of pointing out the (many) spelling errors, cheers.]