Jacob Skeller never saw such an odd box next to a dumpster. Covered in peeling blue paint, with the words “POLICE BOX” written in bold steel letters, a peculiarly strange light at the top of it and a simple lock on the door, it intrigued him more than the street performers before him. It must have been the odd colouring that interested him. After all, nothing looked so bold, yet so hidden. So artsy…

Yes, he said artsy in his head. After all, the art gallery not too far away from his house had used a Police Box like that for an exhibit, but they only found half of it. This specimen, as he investigated, was totally real. The paint peeled off in his hand as he looked behind it, wondering if it was some kind of entrance-way to another world, through the wall it was parked against.

He never noticed the blonde-haired woman staring at him from the opening of the alleyway.

The Doctor stared at the human investigating her TARDIS, bewildered as he delighted in the most insignificant things. Usually people look at the front, not the back, or the sides. Thankfully the windows were freshly tinted.

Jacob froze when he heard a nearby cough.

“Can I help you?”

He jumped up to see a woman in blonde, with a sharp nose and hands deep in her trench-coat pockets. She turned her head slightly, as if looking at a strange art exhibit.

“Can I…Help you?”

The blood rushed away from his face as words failed him.

“Yes, right, well, um. Sorry, miss, but, I, well, this is sort of embarrassing…”

He saw her thin lips curl into a smirk, as if more amused than bothered.

“No, no, please go on. I’m enjoying this.”

She stepped slightly closer as he continued to tumble through his words.

“I… Well, I was looking at your ‘Police Box’ and couldn’t believe that there was a whole one still around. I thought, y’know, maybe this is a door inside to an apartment upstairs.”

She stepped up to the policebox with a soft step, gracefully pulling out a simple key to open the doors.

“You seem curious enough. What’s your name?”

“Jake-Jacob. Jacob. Yours?”

She brushed her long yellow bangs to the side.

“I’m the Doctor. Want to see inside?”

The first question confused him, while the second filled him with immense curiosity.

“Yes, please.”

With the click of a lock, the doors opened wide…

To a room far bigger than he expected.

“No…”

He didn’t even walk in before inspecting the box again, just to be sure he wasn’t mad.

“Is this box connected to the wall?”

“No. You and I both know the store next to us is a clothes shop. Beautiful tops and dresses, but their shoes were all I could afford…”

“But it’s…!”

He hovered around the doors, looking into the massive living room. Not an actual living room, but in his head the room felt alive, like he stepped into the inside of a computer. A column-like console in the center of the room looked like a permanent installation, with rotating section above and massive lava lamps gracing the columns around it. Currents of light pulsated through its clear center, where pieces of metal and glass rotated around themselves like a mutated heart of steel and crystal.

“It’s inconceivable! It’s a miracle! It’s against every known law of physics! It’s…”

She turned to him, leaning on a column and snickering as his mind was utterly blown to smithereens. She’s seen this so many times before, with many different eyes.

“Say it, Jacob. Say what you really mean.”

He calmed himself down, allowing the simple truth to come to him.

“This box is bigger on the inside, than it is on the outside.”

She turned to the center console. With a flick of a switch, the doors closed behind him.

“This is no ordinary box, my new friend. This is a time and relative dimension in space, or TARDIS. This machine can travel anywhere in time and space. All it needs is a destination. I don’t know who you are, or where you’re going, but I know that you’re curious, and curiosity leads to adventures. I could use an adventurer on my team.”

She turned to him as she hung her heavy coat on a rack and returned to the center console.

“I’d like to go on an adventure, Jacob. Where would you like to travel to?”

He walked closer to the center console, his hands floating above the buttons and screens. Scanners and lights flashed and whizzed across the whole room as circles moved and shifted on the walls. He never walked into a room that felt more alive.

“I’m…I’m…I don’t know.”

Her head dropped in disappointment.

“You humans are so interesting. When some curious ones get the chance to travel across time and space, they usually have a clue of where to go.”

She turned back to him, looking for a clue of where to go.

“You don’t have a single clue of where to go? Anywhere in particular?”

He shook his head. Immediately, she returned to the console and pressed a few buttons. Immediately a screen near him turned on, revealing a line on the screen.

“What’s this?”

She looked up from the console and pointed to the line on the screen.

“This is a line of Earth’s history. Simplified for humans to understand. Nothing personal, just the truth. Anyways, this is a cause-and-effect model of the entirety of human history, from Homo Sapien to Solar eruption. Pick a time and we’ll set off-”

He had been looking at the line, but his eyes pointed him towards one part- the far end of the line, where nothing seemed to happen.

“How about here? When is this?”

The Doctor turned to it and stopped mid-breath.

“That’s the end of the humans- no…”

She looked closer, turning the screen to her. Only after examination did she turn to him.

“Do you know when this is?”

He shrugged.

“This is the end of time. When nothing is left in this galaxy but swirls of gas and rocks and ice. Even the radio signals have dissipated. Nothing is left.”

“What is that like?”

She paused.

“I…I don’t know actually.”

“Shall we both find out then?”

She saw it in Jacob’s eyes. He wanted to go to the end of time.

She didn’t even remember what it felt like.

Maybe it would help her in some way.

Immediately she punched in the coordinates.

Milky way Galaxy, time- None.

By the time he actually got to question what he was doing, he felt the TARDIS float off of the ground and disappear into the air.

A blue streak sent ripples of time across its edges. There goes the universe’s rambunctious time traveler and planet hopper, with her new time machine and confused new friend.

“How fast are we traveling, Doctor?”

He held on to a lava lamp for dear life, afraid that if he let go he’d be cast into the void of space.

“You really want to know?”

Curiosity welled up in his throat.

“Yes.”

She flicked another switch, the TARDIS shifting into another gear.

“How ever fast you think it’s going, it’s going a lot faster out there. Besides the numbers are too complicated to explain.”

He turned to the Doctor as she calmly strolled across the bridge.

“How come you’re not gripping the banister, Doctor?”

“Because, Jacob, when you’ve been in the TARDIS for as long as I have, you don’t get so afraid of the time jumps.”

Almost on cue, the TARDIS shifted again, as if changing gears in an automatic transmission.

“We’ll be arriving in a few seconds, Jacob. Hang loose.”

He shut his eyes as he squeaked out. “Don’t you mean ‘Hang tight’?”

She snickered as she flipped a few more switches and pulled another lever.

“Not at all. The more loose you get, the easier it will be when the TARDIS stops.”

He still held fast, ignoring the lost logic. She rolled her eyes as the countdown went from 35 to 0. She pulled the emergency break and set the TARDIS back to stationary. Meanwhile, his grip failed him as he careened into the plush couches lining the walls.

She raced over to the poor man, now buried under an ocean of pillows.

He couldn’t speak, his breathing calming down after screaming so loudly, so quickly.

“I wasn’t ready to die, Doctor.”

She laughed out loud, in a charming but soft volume that calmed him more than embarrassed him.

“I do believe that no one truly is. Even me. Come on, get your legs up from underneath you.”

Her thin arms could surprisingly pull him up, but his legs were stuck below so many pillows.

“Why are there so many round pillows?”

“Because, Jacob, I like round things, and I like pillows. Two great things in one. You’re the only one who’s complained about them.”

“Have there been others?”

Jacob gathered himself and refashioned his tie as The Doctor paused.

“Yes, but none of them have seen the pillows. You were the first, I guess, so you’re the only one.”

He turned into a double-take for the second time in a day- or was it a day any more?

“Doctor, have we arrived?”

Now that Jacob was fully revived, the Doctor turned towards the door, pausing halfway to it.

“Yes, Jacob. We’ve arrived at the furthest point on my TARDIS. The time when time stops, but…”

She stayed in place.

“I’m usually excited to show you the outside, and what it’s like, but alas, I…”

“Alas? Doctor, what’s wrong?”

She turned to him, her thin finger tapping her left cheek.

“Jacob, I don’t think we fully grasp where we are. This is when time stops.”

He sat back down onto the couch, sick of standing. She moved towards the control panel and pressed a few more buttons.

“What does that even mean?”

The Doctor leaned against one of the lava lamp pillars, the ambient glow of gold and blue reflecting off each other.

“It means that this moment is when there’s no one in the known universe that uses time anymore. The only beings around are too unintelligent to comprehend the concept of time. Once the last being dies, the whole universe returns back to how it came- a vast, cold, distant, and primitive plane of existence. A place filled with the dying of the old and the slow rebirth of the new. This is when time, as we know it, ceases to be.”

“But how is that even possible, when we’re still here?”

She turned back to where he sat, beckoning him to continue.

“For example, my phone still works, right? My watch still works. I’m still watching the time. As long as we’re here, time never stops.”

She tapped her cheek again.

“Maybe so, but what happens if we leave? Will time stop when we leave?”

The two of them stared at each other.

“If time has stopped…” Jacob sat up.

“And no one in the Universe is using it anymore except us…” She stopped her tapping.

“We’re the last time-telling beings in the universe.” They said those words simultaneously, as if they each knew what the other was thinking.

She grimaced and began pacing around the room, her heels clicking against the metal floor.

“I knew I shouldn’t have come here! I…”

Jacob sat back on the couch as a sinking feeling washed over him again. It was all his fault.

“This is all my fault. I’m…”

“DON’T YOU DARE BE SORRY!”

He looked up, only to see the Doctor mere centimeters from his face.

“We made this decision together, and we’ll find our way out of this. Now, think with me!”

She continued to pace as she answered his questions, feeling emboldened.

“Why don’t we just leave?”

“Because the Time Threshold is a precarious place. I don’t want to be responsible for time being lost.”

“Why not?”

“Nevermind! More suggestions!”

“We look for other beings, in other galaxies and once we find intelligent life, we go.”

“Good. I set up a scanner while you sat down. We should find out any moment now. More.”

“Um, we set up a beacon, so anyone can know what time it is.”

She paused. He felt a wind of satisfaction wash over him. He said something smart?

“The WatchTower. Of course! I can check to see if that exists anymore. Next?”

He stood up now, readying his best suggestion yet.

“We put up a sign above the TARDIS reading ‘IF YOU STILL TELL TIME, TEXT JACOB’.”

She turned to him with an arched eyebrow.

“You got up from your thinking couch for that? That’s enough for now.”

He slumped back down as the TARDIS scanned for other life forms.

“Doctor, why were you asking me for suggestions? Haven’t you been driving this TARDIS enough to have a lot of companions here? What’s going on?”

The Doctor looked away from the scanners, towards the two doors keeping them away from what was out there.

“I hate this place, Jacob. I hate this moment in time. Yet every time I come here, I forget what I did the last time. That’s how bad this place is. Not the Time War. Not the birth of the Daleks. This moment is my most despised.”

He watched her slowly pace from the door back to the console, her head forcing itself to stay above her shoulders as the scanner reminded them of its existence.

“You hate this place? Does that all mean you’ve been here before?”

She looked away, staring at the opaque windows, maybe hoping to just see a glimpse of the unknown.

“Yes, Jacob. I’ve been here before, many times in fact.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why didn’t you stop me from going there. Just say ‘it’s impossible to get there, try somewhere else’.”

“Because that would be a lie, and I don’t like lying to people. Besides, I keep forgetting why I don’t like coming here.”

“And why is that?”

The Doctor let herself slump against the console for a moment, just one, before strolling towards her new companion. The scanner still announced its existence.

“I’m what humans would call a wizard, a mystic, a miracle worker. However, the proper name for my profession is a Time Lord. I travel through time and space to help people and explore the universe and its endless bounty…”

She trailed off as she walked back to the beeping console. Not a soul within three thousand light-years.

“How long have you been a Time Lord?”

She turned back to him.

“How long have you been this curious?”

He took aback with her question and immediately responded.

“My father hated my questions so much, he used to tell me that everyone you meet will want to tear their ears off. Frankly, I think it’s good for everyone to ask themselves every question about everything. It’s like what Alice said: Think of 17 strange things before breakfast. I say, ask 17 questions before breakfast. So, in short, for forever.”

She snickered at his memory, the sharp edges rubbed down to soft nubs of confidence.

“My father,” she began, “took me to the time of the Big Bang. All I remember was me and my father, nearly blind in our sunglasses, watching the universe begin. He said to me ‘my child, when you get your own TARDIS, you must realize that with it, time is in your hands. Never lose time, for what is a Time Lord, when there’s no time left’. That phrase always stuck with me; every fight, every scream, every laugh, every look to the stars from a new planet and every decision I’ve made. Watch over time, until your breath leaves your body.”

“Sounds like an intense family business.”

She scowled at him.

“I mean it. I’ve been doing this for years, and every time I come here, I get so shaken up I forget what to do.”

“How many years?”

She took a deep breath.

“960.”

Jacob tilted his head.

“Nine Hundred- NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS?!”

She smiled in flattery.

“Well, when you say it like that, it feels strange. Even more so since I do believe I look around thirty in your world.”

She quickly opened a small bag dangling off of the console and looked at herself through a make-up mirror.

“Speaking of which, I like your human make-up. It makes me look so much younger. Truly when you look younger, you feel younger. One of the ladies working the shop said that once. Feels so vain, yet so true.”

“But that’s impossible! How-”

He instinctively closed his mouth as she motioned it to him.

“Let me have this moment.”

She put the mirror away and turned back to the doors.

Don’t lose time, her father had said. What would he think now, when time has run out?

“You want to hear something funny, Jacob?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m the last Time Lord. Funny isn’t it. There’s no one else in the Universe with this thing.”

She tapped the wall, with its spinning gears and slow-blinking lights.

“So out there is where my destiny should be, instead of putting myself in harms way. I should be somewhere else, fighting for those who haven’t yet the power to do so. To soothe the crying children, to feed the poor, to stop oppression and hate across the entire universe and bring peace to every realm. So out of all of the places and times, anyplace at all,what brings me back to you, old nightmare?”

She found herself speaking out loud, the doors standing still, as if beckoning her to open them.

Jacob watched as she put her hand on the handle.

“Why do we cross our paths yet again?”

He sat in silence as she gripped the handle.

“I’ve been terrified of your existence. The fact that you do exist, out there in the aether, scares me to no end. When the nightmare ends every night, it always ends with you. Always there, always waiting.

“This time, I want to see your face.”

“Doctor…”

He stood up quickly.

“What are you doing?”

She continued.

“I want to see your face, demon. I want to see what I’ve been afraid of for so long.”

She gripped the handle tighter.

“Doctor, stop! The vacuum!”

“The only reason you’ve been around so long is because I’ve allowed it. I’m the master of you! No one knows that you exist but me! I am in control here! This one moment exists is because I’ve let it go on for too long!”

The door shook as she held it tighter.

“You’re the one thing I fear, yet I keep you alive to hide from. I want to see what you are! SHOW ME!”

As soon as she opened the door, all sounds abruptly stopped.

Nothing.

That’s all she saw.

A dark, empty abyss of nothingness; absence of light and hope.

She knew what to expect. After all, when time dies, it isn’t abrupt like a broken watch or an empty tank of gas. When time dies, it’s slow and painful. Everything alive, and everything those living things make, crumbles. Empires, space colonies, whole galaxies go to ruin. The universe was frozen as its creations stopped burning.

The Doctor from stared into the abyss, holding onto the doorpost for dear life. Words escaped her grasp. Her breathing stopped. Both hearts froze. Tears streamed down her face.

She saw the face of death in the place where London once stood.

No time.

No space.

Just her.

“DOCTOR!” Jacob ran towards her. Yet it felt like he was moving an inch an hour.

“GET AWAY FROM THE DOOR!”

She forced her mouth to speak.

“I……..can’t.”

It’s everything she fears. The worlds she saves falling into the depths of frozen space. Her homeland, somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy, devoid of hope and despair.

Nothing left in the Universe, but her.

But her.

If she had hope that there was another way to postpone the end. That’s it!

He eventually reached her, but she pushed him away.

“No! Let me see if….I…..could…”

She gripped the doorpost as she felt her body being sucked in, like the abyss was a black hole.

“I see your face…” She mumbled under her breath, as she pulled herself away.

“I will not let you…” She pulled further.

“TAKE…MINE!”

She swung her body away from the doorway as she slammed one door shut. Immediately, with the push of a nearby button, the second door slammed shut.

They were safe again.

She slumped down, leaning against the doorpost in a fit of laughter.

She could sense Jacob’s confusion as she wiped the tears from her face.

“That was all I was afraid of? Ha!”

“But you were stunned into silence just now! How could you be so joyful?!”

“Don’t you see, Jacob? When you face a fear, it doesn’t scare you quite like it used too. I can’t believe I used to be scared of that.”

She pointed her thumb at the doors and the blackness that emitted from the windows.

“But you’ve been afraid of it all of your life. You said it terrified you.”

“I did. I still am. That’s the magic of fear, Jacob.”

She still gathered her breath in as she spoke.

“Fear only works before and during the ordeal. Only after, when you’ve conquered it once or twice, you can point at it and laugh.

“But the crazy thing about fear is that we forget it’s there until we need it the least. The moment when we purge our mind of thoughts and delve into what we would normally shy away from, we forget just how afraid we truly were of the monster.”

She took a couple of breaths as Jacob tried to help her up.

“Yet despite all of the other monsters I’ve conquered, this one will always haunt me, not because of memory. Dear me, no. It’s an inevitability that I must always consider. Everything I do is to avoid this moment, yet I need to face it every so often.”

“Why, Doctor?”

“To try and find a way to stop it.”

“How can you stop something as big as Time stopping completely.”

He watched her slowly pace from the door back to the console, her head forcing itself to stay above her shoulders as the scanner reminded them of its existence.

“You hate this place? Does that all mean you’ve been here before?”

She looked away, staring at the opaque windows, maybe hoping to just see a glimpse of the unknown.

“Yes, Jacob. I’ve been here before, many times in fact.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why didn’t you stop me from going there. Just say ‘it’s impossible to get there, try somewhere else’.”

“Because that would be a lie, and I don’t like lying to people. Besides, I keep forgetting why I don’t like coming here.”

“And why is that?”

The Doctor let herself slump against the console for a moment, just one, before strolling towards her new companion. The scanner still announced its existence.

“I’m what humans would call a wizard, a mystic, a miracle worker. However, the proper name for my profession is a Time Lord. I travel through time and space to help people and explore the universe and its endless bounty…”

She trailed off as she walked back to the beeping console. Not a soul within three thousand light-years.

“How long have you been a Time Lord?”

She turned back to him.

“How long have you been this curious?”

He took aback with her question and immediately responded.

“My father hated my questions so much, he used to tell me that everyone you meet will want to tear their ears off. Frankly, I think it’s good for everyone to ask themselves every question about everything. It’s like what Alice said: Think of 17 strange things before breakfast. I say, ask 17 questions before breakfast. So, in short, for forever.”

She snickered at his memory, the sharp edges rubbed down to soft nubs of confidence.

“My father,” she began, “took me to the time of the Big Bang. All I remember was me and my father, nearly blind in our sunglasses, watching the universe begin. He said to me ‘my child, when you get your own TARDIS, you must realize that with it, time is in your hands. Never lose time, for what is a Time Lord, when there’s no time left’. That phrase always stuck with me; every fight, every scream, every laugh, every look to the stars from a new planet and every decision I’ve made. Watch over time, until your breath leaves your body.”

“Sounds like an intense family business.”

She scowled at him.

“I mean it. I’ve been doing this for years, and every time I come here, I get so shaken up I forget what to do.”

“How many years?”

She took a deep breath.

“960.”

Jacob tilted his head.

“Nine Hundred- NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS?!”

She smiled in flattery.

“Well, when you say it like that, it feels strange. Even more so since I do believe I look around thirty in your world.”

She quickly opened a small bag dangling off of the console and looked at herself through a make-up mirror.

“Speaking of which, I like your human make-up. It makes me look so much younger. Truly when you look younger, you feel younger. One of the ladies working the shop said that once. Feels so vain, yet so true.”

“But that’s impossible! How-”

He instinctively closed his mouth as she motioned it to him.

“Let me have this moment.”

She put the mirror away and turned back to the doors.

Don’t lose time, her father had said. What would he think now, when time has run out?

“You want to hear something funny, Jacob?”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m the last Time Lord. Funny isn’t it. There’s no one else in the Universe with this thing.”

She tapped the wall, with its spinning gears and slow-blinking lights.

“So out there is where my destiny should be, instead of putting myself in harms way. I should be somewhere else, fighting for those who haven’t yet the power to do so. To soothe the crying children, to feed the poor, to stop oppression and hate across the entire universe and bring peace to every realm. So out of all of the places and times, anyplace at all,what brings me back to you, old nightmare?”

She found herself speaking out loud, the doors standing still, as if beckoning her to open them.

Jacob watched as she put her hand on the handle.

“Why do we cross our paths yet again?”

He sat in silence as she gripped the handle.

“I’ve been terrified of your existence. The fact that you do exist, out there in the aether, scares me to no end. When the nightmare ends every night, it always ends with you. Always there, always waiting.

“This time, I want to see your face.”

“Doctor…”

He stood up quickly.

“What are you doing?”

She continued.

“I want to see your face, demon. I want to see what I’ve been afraid of for so long.”

She gripped the handle tighter.

“Doctor, stop! The vacuum!”

“The only reason you’ve been around so long is because I’ve allowed it. I’m the master of you! No one knows that you exist but me! I am in control here! This one moment exists is because I’ve let it go on for too long!”

The door shook as she held it tighter.

“You’re the one thing I fear, yet I keep you alive to hide from. I want to see what you are! SHOW ME!”

As soon as she opened the door, all sounds abruptly stopped.