DIMENSIONS

DIMENSIONS

A Doctor Who fanfiction

Summary: Aria Klenton is just your average thirteen-year-old with a not-so-average life. Because how could you call getting stuck in a different dimension with a different version of yourself AND an alien who is claimed to be in a TV show normal? Join Aria in her abstract adventure to find closure.

Rated: K+

-x-

A/N: Let me just get this out there right now: I'm American. As in, from the United States, and not British. I'm really sorry for any confusion. Also, some clarifications real quick: there are two parallel dimenions, one where Doctor Who is a TV show and one where the Doctor and everything that happened in the show is real. This story is about a girl who somehow slips through the gap.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or any of its characters. The show belongs to the BBC.

-x-

I swung my sonic screwdriver flashlight around my room once, twice and then again, pausing in between. It was a tradition I had picked up about a year ago, when I got the little keychain.

There was no way that I could sleep without my little ritual. Ever since seeing ghosts in my friend's attic, my once-nonexistent fear of the dark has slowly cranked itself up and up and up, with no definite top volume.

Relieved that there were no creatures in my room other than myself, I turned off the tiny LED light and placed it on my nightstand. I thought that I was safe curled up in my covers. I thought that there was no way that anything could ever hurt me in my room.

I was dead wrong.

Things turned serious the moment I woke up. My alarm clock buzzed relentlessly, making me drag myself out of bed to get to school. I brushed my teeth, took a quick shower and grabbed a waffle before grabbing my backpack and heading out the door.

The walk to school was quiet, as usual. No strange passerby stopped me to get my autograph like they used to. I'm still not quite sure why.

School passed rather slowly. Time ticked by ten times slower than usual, and the day seemed to drag on forever. When it was finally time for lunch, I plopped down next to my friends and heaved a huge sigh.

"Why so blue?" Kelly asked, her cutesy-looking face creasing with worry. "You're never this depressed, let alone on a Friday."

I shook my head. "I don't even know anymore. Time is too slow. I wish something exciting would happen for once."

"Aw, c'mon Aria! Cheer up!" the blonde smacked me in the back. I put my head in my hands.

"NOT helping."

Maya thought for a second, and her face lit up- until it crashed into full concern. "Aria Klenton, is there something wrong with your room?"

-x-

The Doctor spun his way around the TARDIS console, pulling levers and pushing buttons everywhere.

"And why am I needed now?" He whipped out his psychic paper and stared at a message that hadn't been there five seconds earlier; a message that was sort of... Flashing.

'There is nothing in my room. There is nothing in my room.'

As the TARDIS halted, The Doctor shoved the paper back into his pocket and dashed to the doors. Throwing them open revealed a dark hallway with a stern-faced girl staring at him with a stern expression. Her dark blonde hair was messy and she was pointing a strange-looking little flashlight at him in shaking hands.

"Oh! Hello!" the Doctor exclaimed, surprised. "Is thee something wrong with your room?"

The girl's eyes narrowed, and she spoke slowly. "Doctor," she started, and paused. After a moment, she dropped the flashlight by her side and let a tear slip down her cheek. "Help me."

-x-

"There's nothing in my room," I insisted again, trying to make myself believe it. "My house isn't haunted." I stood up. "I've got to get to class," I mumbled, hanging my head. As a matter of fact, the floor of the cafeteria was actually grey. I had never noticed that before. "Did you know that-"

"We all know the cafeteria floor is grey, Ri. That's your excuse, every single day," Kelly told me seriously. My eyes widened.

"I've... Never said that before though," I whispered. "I've always thought the floor was white."

Maya pulled me back into my seat and looked deep into my eyes. "Listen, Aria. We're you're friends. You can tell us anything."

I stared at her for a moment, and then looked around the table. Everyone was looking at me sorrowfully, with eyes full of pity. As a matter of fact, the entire cafeteria was silent. I had never noticed the feeling of peace that surrounded the room.

I took a deep breath. "There's absolutely-"

"QUIET DOWN, EVERYONE," a teacher yelled, running into the room. Her piercing blue eyes grazed the cafeteria before returning to focus on the occupants as a whole. "I am here to speak to you about a very serious topic. Earlier today, one of your classmates, Aria Klenton, was seen jumping off the cliff into the choppy sea." I was shaking in my seat, and the entire cafeteria was staring at me. "Suicide is a serious thing. We will have more news later in the week. Thank you for your attention," the teacher said, and walked out of the room. She never noticed me. This time when I stood up, everyone was silent.

Nobody stopped me from running all the way home.

-x-

"So, what's wrong with your room?" the Doctor asked, following his newest patient down the hallway. They stopped outside a room childishly marked with a hand-drawn sign on a bright white door. She turned around.

"Oh, my room is fine. It's cheery and such, just as you would expect a teenage girl's room to be, y'know? It's happy, it's calm, and it is by no means haunted. But then, you turn out the lights. You turn out the lights and you close the door, and suddenly, things get oh, so much worse. So much worse..." the girl was really crying now; but like a ninja, it was silent. The Doctor took notice of the name on the sign.

"Well then, Aria, if nothing is wrong, I'd best be off. In fact, I do believe my paper was calling me elsewhere..."

"Your paper. Your psychic paper? Don't play games with me, Doctor. I know who you are, and I know that you have a very, very specific idea of what is going on here. It's the day that counts. The light that's pouring in only when I'm not there."

"Who are you?"

"You know my name." she pointed to the sign. "I'm Aria."

"But you called me the Doctor. Nobody ever knows to call me that, not right away..."

"Well I do. Now, pull out that little screwdriver of yours and follow me." she shoved aside the heavy-looking dresser, revealing metallic-looking chute that shouldn't have been there. A faint purple light glowed from what was presumably the bottom. "You're going to help me figure this all out." And without another word, the strange girl slid herself down into the tunnel and out of sight.

The Doctor was stunned. "My name, my paper, my screwdriver... she knows about them all," he mumbled to himself as he cautiously pulled said screwdriver out of his pocket. "How does she know all that?" With that, he lowered himself into the metal tunnel and slid into another world.

-x-

The road pounded against my feet as I dashed back to the safety of my home. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, not the cars beeping relentlessly at me or the speed I was running at down the center of the street. I didn't care.

I tripped at the edge of the river, leaving me about to tumble down and hit my head on the rocks. I braced myself for pain, but instead found myself falling onto a soft, squishy figure.

'What the hell?' I thought, my eyes still clamped shut. I felt the substance below me and opened my eyes. It was plastic! A soft, squishy plastic! But... It was MOVING!

I touched my nose to the 'water' to see if it was, in fact, a river. I couldn't feel anything. It felt as if my nose was just hanging in the air, although I was certain that I was, in fact, in contact with the substance. A purple glow entranced me for a moment, but then I pulled back of my own will. Confused, I stood up and climbed out of the riverbank-

...And ran right into my very best friend, Vera.

"Um, hi, Vera! How... How are you today?"

"What do you call this?" she said angrily, shoving a newspaper in my face. I read the headline.

"'Tennage Girl gets into a Complicated Situation'?" I whispered. I snatched the paper away and skimmed the article.

'The other day... Aria Klenton... Parents devestated... Meanwhile, she's been sighted dead at the bottom of the cliff, again with her face in a river every day for a week but only by one unreliable old lady who doesn't believe her own eyes, and running around with a mysterious figure in a fez and a bow tie. Will we ever figure out the mystery of Aria Klenton? More on page A6.'

I dropped the paper and stared into space.

"Aria? ARIA!"

I felt my world starting to spin before it all went black.

-x-

The Doctor tumbled carelessly down the chute, yelling a bit as he fell right on top of Aria.

"Right, sorry about that," he said, jumping up. "Now, Aria. Tell me- have you ever been here before?"

"No, never,"'the girl replied confidently. "I've always been too scared to wander beneath my room."

"Well then, you'll be pleasantly surprised to know that we are not, in fact, below your room." he swung his sonic screwdriver around, and flipped the top up. "Yeah, just as I suspected. We're not just below your room- we're below the entire planet."

"You can't be below the earth, Doctor," the girl said unbelievingly. "No matter where you go, you'll always hit some other continent on the other side, meaning you've been going up. And we can't be in the center of the earth, since there's that mass of aliens already living down there, right?"

The Doctor stopped to stare at the girl. "Yeah," he replied, "Millions of them." he turned back around and spread his arms. "But Aria, didn't you ever think larger than just your planet?"

The girl pulled out her flashlight. It was a tiny one, on a keychain. The switch was just a simple button.

"Doctor?" she asked. "If you're real, will my screwdriver work, too?" she turned the little doodad over in her hands, staring at it in awe.

"Maybe, maybe not. In any event, I think we should go..." he scanned the room, not really paying attention to her question. "That way." he shoved the screwdriver in his pocket, grabbed her hand and brought her at a fast pace into the tunnel.

In the darkness, they ran hand-in-hand until they came to a dead end. Scared, Aria turned around and took out her flashlight.

"Wait," the Doctor whispered, and pointed his own screwdriver down the dark tunnel. "Whatever you are, come out now." A pale man appeared, and then a woman and a little girl. Their faces were ghostly and their feet didn't quite touch the ground. The Doctor whispered a strange name, something that sounded like Gibberish to Aria, and finished with another name, this one all-to familiar. "Ghosts. They only come out when there's a strong power drawing them, or at least these ones do. But what?"

Aria shivered and clung to the Doctor's coat. "Help me," she whispered, shutting her eyes. She took a deep breath and calmed. "There is nothing in my room," she whispered quietly. "There is nothing in my room. There is nothing in my room." the ghosts smirked and slowly came closer.

"Aria," the Doctor said shakily, "I'm know you're scared right now, but I'm going to need you to be very, very brave." the girl stiffened and slowly drew her eyes away from the Doctor's tweed jacket. He took out his sonic screwdriver and pointed it at the ghosts. "When I say go, you need to let go of me and run back to your room. Got it?" he narrowed his eyes and soniced the apparitions. "RUN!"

Aria dashed through the ghosts and made a sharp left. With the monsters on her heels, she came to another dead end.

"What?" she whispered, panicking. "DOCTOR!"

"Aria!" a choked voice came from behind the creatures. The Doctor was there, dangling by his arms from two new ghosts. The girl stiffened. "You have to stand up to them! They're feeding on your fear!"

Aria thought for a minute, and then took a deep breath. She reached into her back pocket and drew out her keychain. "Ghosts, I am aware you exist," she said, slowly bringing the flashlight level with the ghosts. "And-" she paused and took a deep breath. "I am not afraid."

And with a click of the flashlight's button, the ghosts all disappeared, bringing a smile to the girl's face. Unfortunately for the other happy member of the audience, it also brought the Doctor to a large heap on the floor.

"Ouch," he said, and grabbing the girl's hand with a smile, walked back through the tunnels to find the TARDIS.

-x-

I woke up on a bed in a bright pink room. It obviously enough wasn't the hospital, or my room, or any of my friends' rooms, for that matter. I slowly sat up and the world span beneath me. I felt like I was going to be sick but I knew that I had to find out the date. I pressed a mysterious red button beside my bed and reclined back into the pillows, which I had fluffed so I could remain in a sitting position.

"Voice interface enabled," a mysterious voice announced, as a man with wild hair and a bow tie materialized.

"Voice interface?" I questioned. "What's that?"

"Voice interface enabled," the man said again.

"Yes, but what is a voice interface? Are you alive? Who are you?" I crossed my arms, annoyed.

"I am nobody. I am not alive. I am a voice interface," he insisted.

I was getting very cross at this. "Okay then, 'voice interface,' where are we?"

The man looked around. "You are inside the Time And Relative Dimension In Space. I am not alive. I am a voice interface."

"Who are you supposed to LOOK like, then, Mr. Voice interface?"

"This is the form of the Doctor. You have not been within my walls long enough for me to determine who you admire most; therefore, you are viewing the default setting: the Doctor."

I arched an eyebrow in confusion. "Doctor who?"

For whatever reason, the man smiled slyly. "Walk out the door, take two lefts and a right and then walk straight down the hallway until you reach the main control room. There you will meet someone who will explain everything." with that, the man's image shivered and dissipated.

I narrowed my eyes again and pushed the button. When nothing happened, I pushed it again. And again. Eventually I resorted to slamming the button repetitively, but all that happened was that the surreal, metallic door that shouldn't be there started to glow with a strange green light and glowing white arrows (pointing to the door, of course) appeared on the walls. I frowned and slowly lifted myself out of bed- which I soon discovered was a loft bed when I fell with a crash to the floor. Said floor creaked, I groaned, and I discovered I wasn't wearing my school clothes anymore. As a matter of fact I was wearing a blue sweatshirt and jeans. I panicked. Somebody... CHANGED my CLOTHES? I panicked, and dashed out into the hallway. I took a left, a right, and another right...

...and came into a strange room.

The room was circular and was altogether very strange. It had tree-like things all around it, and was empty.

"Hello?" I asked shakily, looking around. The lights were flickering and the room looked like it was about to collapse. I ran back into the door.

I had completely forgotten every single bit of the interface's instructions. Instead, I continued running straight until I came to a futuristic, green-and-yellow themed room. It was raised up by a single stair and in the middle there was a huge console. It had buttons and shiny levers that looked completely untouched. The only source of light was a glowing silver orb, suspended in a tube in the middle of the room. I slowly approached it and grazed my fingers over the buttons.

"What are you?" I asked quietly. I gently pulled a lever, just to experiment, and the entire room groaned. I panicked again and ran out of the room.

After running in random directions for a while, I started to get a feeling that the room I was actually looking for was only a turn away. Sure enough, I glanced around the corner of the hallway and there it was- a large, circular room with an odd door in the front. I dashed up the few steps to get to the main controls and walked around the console.

"Again, what are you?" I gazed at the... Thing in the middle of the room and realized that there was a screen pulled down on the other side. I dashed around and gazed at the screen. It was all in circles, a language I couldn't (and still can't) read. "Very helpful," I murmmured, sticking out my tongue at the 'informational' message.

All of a sudden, the door opened with nobody behind it. I became very curious and ran to investigate, but nobody was there. In fact, all I saw was a dark hallway that looked just like my own.

Shrugging it off, I closed the door and walked back up to the center controls. "What are you?" I asked yet again, but got interrupted by rude voices seemingly coming from outside the room.

"Who was that? And how did they get inside the TARDIS?" a woman's voice that was oddly familiar asked.

"I'm not sure," a man's voice replied. I recognized it from the voice interface. What did it call him? The nurse or something? "But wait. How did you know this is the TARDIS?" a thump came from somewhere.

"A TV show," the girl's voice replied. "But can we please go inside now? I'm sure whatever's in there is perfectly friendly, or a Dalek."

"Very reassuring, but we need to be careful about this," the theoretical man with a bow tie replied. I was confused. What's a Dalek?

I heard faint footsteps. Suddenly, I screamed as the doors flew open and a man came jumping in.

"HYA!" the man shouted, leaping in and taking a battle stance. He glanced at me and then looked back outside. And then at me. And back outside.

"Who are you?" I asked, pointing a finger. "Are you the Nurse?"

"Nurse?" the man asked, still shaking his head. "Well, no, actually, I'm the Doctor. But-" he paused for a second to look me over thoroughly. "Would you mind telling me your name?"

I frowned. So a man comes flying in, does awkward ninja dances, and then expects me to tell him my NAME? "Why should I tell you?" I asked, but the man was already leaning his head back out the door.

"Yes, slight technical difficulties. Don't come in yet." he came back inside. "What was that? Sorry, got a little sidetracked. Oh, name? Yes, yes, name. Well, I'm the Doctor. I need to know everyone's names."

'Very specific,' I thought glumly, but resigned all the same. "My name," I started,

"Is Aria Klenton." I recoiled in surprise as he talked in sync with me. "How did you know that?"

He was staring at me again. It creeped me out, because he felt like the kind of person who seems nice but then turns out to be a pedophile. This time, however, he was staring straight into my eyes, which made me feel marginally better.

"Whatever you do, promise me you won't move," he said, sternly. His eyes told me that I had to let him do this. I nodded my head slowly and he smiled, reaching in to his coat. He took out a strange-looking magic wandy-thingy and pointed it at me. He pushed something and a strange green light stared scanning me. My confusion only heightened when he flicked some pointy things up and said "Yup, she's the real Aria." he walked outside again, presumably to talk to the woman.

What the hell is going on?

He came back inside with a sigh. "Okay, here's the deal. I need you to come outside and see something."

"What kind of a something?" I asked suspiciously.

"A tunnel," he replied. "Follow me."

We walked outside the door and sure enough, we were in my hallway. My door was even marked with the same sign. But something was... Off. I turned around to face the Doctor again, and he was talking to the woman, who was staring at me. I would get suspicious, if I hadn't then realized who it was.

"That's... That's me!"

The Doctor stopped talking at me to look at me. "Yes, yes, technical difficulties and complicated stuff... It'll all make sense in about a minute. Probably. In the meantime, do either of you have a fez?" My eyebrow arched in confusion. This was going to be a long night.

The Doctor led me into my room and looked at my duplicate. "Okay Aria, help me out." the other me nodded and pulled my dresser aside. I gasped. There was my room, exactly how I'd left it- only instead of it being empty as it should be, my mother was at the foot of the bed, crying. I stated at the scene for a minute before tearing up and dashing straight into the wall. I peeled my face off the wall and poked the image. Now, my mom had dissapeared.

"What?" I asked quietly, crying. "WHAT IS GOING ON?" I turned to the Doctor, who only looked at me sadly.

"Parallel dimensions with different timestreams. You just got stuck in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can't go back there."

"What do you mean I can't go back? This isn't my home! I can't stay here!" I gestured to the other me. "What is she, a doppelgänger or something? I want to go home!" the other Aria was standing silently in the corner.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly, "I wish it didn't have to be this way. Why can't she stay here, with me, Doctor? If she can't go home, why can't she stay?" her voice was quiet.

"Aria, if you know as much about me as you apparently do, you know that there can't be two of the same person in one space. It just wouldn't work," the Doctor replied glumly. Then his face lit up. "Aria!" he pointed to me. "Why don't you come and travel with me!"

"I would rather live with a family of sharks than travel with a scumbag like you," I spat. I was seriously pissed at him. All I wanted to do was go home and take a nice, long nap. The Doctor seemed to think for a minute, then sat on the bed.

"Tell me, Aria, exactly what happened before you came here."

I rolled my eyes. "And why should I? I can't go home, anyways. It doesn't matter anymore."

"Aria, trust him. He's sincere," the other me said. I narrowed my eyes and sighed. I sat down on the floor.

"I was in school when things started to get weird. I noticed that the cafeteria floor was grey, which my friends agreed I discover every day. I never knew that before. Then, a teacher came in and said I committed suicide. I ran out and tripped in a river, but the water was plastic. Well, more like rubber, because it was squishy, but it was moving and staying still at the same time. I touched my nose to it and it didn't touch anything. I saw a purple light for a minute before I pulled away and walked up the bank. There, I met my friend Vera, who was holding a newspaper saying I'd been in the river for a week while running around with you while sitting dead at the bottom of a cliff. And now I'm here."

"Is that EXACTLY what happened?" The Doctor asked.

"Abbreviated," I replied, but nodded all the same. The man smiled.

"Aria Klenton, I am taking you home."

My doppelganger gasped. "But that would rip a hole in the fabric of the universe! Plus, you just said it was impossible."

The Doctor smiled. "You say I have a show on the telly? Well then, you must know the one thing that always applies to almost any situation." they both grinned.

"Time can be rewritten."

-x-

I waved goodbye to myself and stepped inside the TARDIS. The man was calling his box sexy with no shame, and I was confused until I discovered it was its name.

"You're a mad man," I stated, and he smiled wistfully.

"A mad man with a box," he stated. I didn't bother him after that.

"Right, here we are," he exclaimed a minute later. I gasped and dashed to the doors, but he stopped me before I could open them. "Not so fast," he said, "Here's the plan."

A few minutes later I found myself playing Tag with the Doctor along the town's streets. I got weird looks from everybody and loved every minute of it. After sitting in a box for that long, it felt amazing to run around.

The Doctor won. It was sad. I guess that if you travel with him, there must be an insane amount of running involved, because he was very, very good at it. He smiled at me and left in his TARDIS, and I made my way to the beach.

The cliffs on the edge of town are really high. Nobody ever dares to go near them, let alone jump off. Gleefully, I dashed to the edge and dove off the cliffs. Nobody ever saw what happened next.

I wonder if people will be surprised when they discover that my bloody body is only a doll. I'm hoping that nobody is daring enough to go down there to retrieve it, so that my 'death' will always be a mystery. But that's no matter. The Doctor caught me, saved me and let me go.

And now, as we travel through time to a place I can start again, I can finally find a reason to smile.

America, here I come.

.

Thank you for reading!