"Can I help you?" Steven asked the man.
The man in the leather jacket just stared at him without answering his question.
For a moment Steven saw something flicker in the man's eyes—recognition? Perhaps sadness? Something… old. Steven felt his breath catch. The man was looking at him like… like he knew him. And not just casually, not in the way you know a neighbor or someone you've passed on the street. No, something deeper than that.
And what was even stranger—Steven couldn't help but feel the same way. A tug of familiarity he couldn't quite place. Like greeting and old friend whose name he's forgotten.
The man's expression changed, something complicated on his face. He then offered a strained smile and a light nod, as if he was acknowledging something unspoken between them.
Before Steven could even decide on it he found himself nodding back, further deepening his confusion.
"Just visiting," the man said quietly, though his eyes lingered on Steven a moment longer. "Don't mind me."
Before Steven could respond, or question the man, he already turned his attention to Rose, pulling out a strange device and studying it with a frown. "Right then! So—" He looked up at her. "What are you doing here?"
Rose blinked. "What am I doing here?"
"Yeah." The man looked genuinely confused.
"I live here," Rose answered, just as confused.
"Well, what do you do that for?" he asked again, now looking like he was almost offended.
"Because I do! And I'm only at home because someone blew up where I work at!" Rose was now properly annoyed.
Steven turned back to the TV and while shaking off his feelings continued his work. Still, he couldn't help stealing glances as the two continued their bizarre argument. When do you ever get to watch something like this? He caught movement in his peripheral vision—Jackie, half hidden behind the kitchen wall, peeking out while she was sipping her tea. Well, at least he wasn't the only one feeling this way.
"I must have got the wrong signal," the man muttered, looking at the device in his hand. He suddenly looked back at Rose. "You're not plastic, are you?" Then he knocked on her head.
Before Steven could process the oddity of the conversation, the man rapped his knuckles on Rose's head. "No, bonehead. Bye then."
He grinned and turned to leave, but Jackie was suddenly behind him, blocking his path.
"Who is it?" Jackie asked.
"He was just leaving," answered Rose for him, clearly wanting to usher the man out.
"Well he's already here, might as well offer him coffee?"
"Might as well, thanks!" The man stopped in his place with that grin on his face. "Just milk."
Rose was properly pissed off now. She didn't even look at him, instead went to the kitchen with Jackie to talk to her.
The man stayed where he was, still wearing that pleasant smile as if nothing had happened. He looked around, taking in the photos and other items he could find.
Steven finished with the repair and stood up from behind the TV.
"Jackie," he shouted to the kitchen, although it was unnecessary in such a small flat, "Telly's done!"
"Thank you, you're an angel, do you want to stay for coffee and some snacks?"
"No, thank you! I should be going now."
Steven then turned to say goodbye to the stranger. The man was staring at him again with that same intense, unreadable expression.
Steven felt his skin prickle.
"Yes, quite right. Bye!" the man said, hands behind his back.
His smile was so obviously forced that even Steven, who only just met him, could tell something was off.
Steven headed toward the kitchen to say goodbye to Jackie. He was almost through the doorway when he heard a strangled, choking sound from the living room.
He spun around and saw the man was on the sofa, thrashing wildly, both hands grabbing at something wrapped around his throat.
It took Steven a few seconds to realize that he was fighting… with a plastic mannequin arm?
Rose also came in from the kitchen with two mugs in her hands and stopped dead. "What— "
"I told Mickey to chuck that out," Rose said as she set the mugs down on the table. "You're all the same. Give a man a plastic hand… Anyway, I don't even know your name. Doctor, was it?"
Steven, who was still processing what was going on, paused. Doctor? The word caught in his mind like a net catching a fish.
'Doctor. Why did that name feel… familiar?'
The Doctor finally threw the arm off. Steven expected it to hit the floor. Instead, it stopped in mid-air, defying physics and just hung there like it was considering it next options—then deciding to shot toward Rose and clamped onto her face.
Steven just stood frozen, mind completely blank from the surreal situation.
The Doctor was still clutching his throat, gasping for air and staring at Rose in alarm. His eyes flicked down to the floor. Steven followed his gaze, a slim metallic device lay on the carpet.
Then like a muscle memory he didn't know he had flood his brain. His body instinctively moved before his mind could process what was happening and lunged for it.
Steven picked up the device, pointed it at Rose and gave a mental instruction for the device to execute. It whirred, its tip glowing blue and the arm released Rose. It fell to the ground where Steven then jabbed the device into its palm. The fingers stopped twitching and flexing, then went limp.
"What was that?" Rose, asked while also gasping for air.
The Doctor looked between Rose, Steven, and the arm. He seemed to force himself to relax.
"It's all right. Your pal stopped it." he picked up the arm. "There you go, you see? Armless."
"Oh, do you think?" Rose took the arm from the Doctor and smacked him with it. "Ow!"
While the two of them argued, Steven yet again, stood frozen. He was still holding the strange metallic device and stared at it.
'How did I know to do that?'
He'd just known what to do with it. Without thinking. Just knew exactly where to point it, how to operate it. The exact… frequency… to use to deactivate the plastic arm. But now… trying to remember how he'd known, there was nothing. Just blank space in his head where this knowledge was a moment ago. No words came out of his mouth, but his brain was running at a hundred miles an hour.
He looked down at the device again, then stared at Doctor, then Rose. He was panicking now. The walls of the flat suddenly felt too close to feel comfortable.
He then suddenly straightened, almost mechanically, his spine going rigid. Like some other part of him had taken control.
"Ah, my apologies. I should take my leave now!"
'What was that?' The words that came out were way too formal, way too stiff. Not his words at all.
Both the Doctor and Rose turned to look at Steven. Rose opened her mouth, a question forming, but the Doctor stayed silent, giving him that same knowing look.
Steven turned toward the door, then hesitated. The metal device was still in his hand. He was terrified from the way he felt it so familiar. He carefully set it down on the coffee table, but his fingers were reluctant to let it go.
He looked at the Doctor again, who still didn't say anything. But the steady, knowing way he was watching him made his skin crawl. Not with fear exactly. With something else, he couldn't name.
'I need to go. Right now.'
Steven had no idea what was going on, but he knew that this was all wrong. So very wrong.
That feeling after he'd been discharged from the hospital came back again. The one he buried and decided to ignore because he had to.
'You're waiting for someone to tell him this wasn't your life.'
It scared him. It made his stomach churn.
'It's not real. None of it's real.'
It wasn't his flat or his life or his face in the mirror. Everything. He just knew it. His mum, his first love—all of it could be wrong. False. Planted
What he'd feared might actually be true. He'd been living in someone else's skin. If this wasn't his life, then whose was it? And who—what—was he?
The Doctor was still watching him with that terrible, patient, knowing look. Like he already knew the answer and was waiting for Steven to figure it out himself.
But Steven was terrified to. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. Because once he did, he couldn't unknow it.
His thoughts were interrupted.
He heard something. It sounded like a bell. Distant, ringing somewhere on the outside. The Doctor's head snapped up. He'd heard it too. His eyes found Steven's again, then flicked toward the window, toward wherever the sound was coming from.
Steven overwhelmed with dread turned to leave the flat, only to find Jackie blocking the doorway, phone in hand, halfway to calling help but instead frozen by the sight in front of her. Steven ignored her and slipped past her.
Once outside he turned to the stairs. His feet hit only every second step. His breath ragged and his thoughts kept circling back to the same thing.
'Steven Hale.'
Did he even know his own name? The question stopped him cold, his hand gripping the railing.
'Steven Hale.'
It was wrong to even think about it.
He started running again.
The remaining three stayed in the living room, Jackie and Rose each glancing between the other two, waiting for answers. The Doctor now wore his faint grin again, clearly not planning to explain.
Rose gave up. She rushed out of the flat, shouting after Steven. By the time she came out, she saw over the railing that Steven was already downstairs, running across the yard in that same funny way he always did when he was flustered.
Rose watched him go—all stiff and hurried. A laugh escaping from her mouth despite the weirdness of the last few minutes. "Like a penguin that has his arse set on fire," she muttered. But her smile faded as she realized he wasn't just leaving. He was fleeing.
As she watched Steven's figure grow smaller and smaller in the distance, she felt a breeze behind her and saw the Doctor also heading out.
"Hold on a minute! You can't just go swanning off!"
"Yes, yes I can!" The Doctor chuckled without turning around. "Here I am. This is me, swanning off. See ya!"
Rose started running after him, leaving Jackie in the door staring at their back.
"But that arm was moving. It tried to kill me!" Rose said catching up to the Doctor.
***
Steven was running.
He didn't know where he was going.
He just kept running, his thoughts in overdrive.
He could hear whispering around him, but couldn't tell from where.
He finally stopped where the garages were.
Panting, he leaned into one of the garage's door with his back, and subconsciously reached for his fob watch in his pocket. As his fingers brushed across the metal he felt a jolt running up his arm.
The watch was warm. Not hot enough to burn him, but unmistakably warm, like somebody left it out in the sun while on the beach.
He heard the whispering again from earlier. As he held the watch closer to his ears he realized the whispering came from the watch itself.
"You're late again!"
The voice he heard was dry and amused.
"Sorry!" He heard his own voice, but a lot different, sharper. "Had to re-calibrate the dimensional anchor on Bay Thirteen. Some idiots tried to park a Type 79 without the safety protocols."
The other voice snorted. "Oh, you mechanics and your anchors. One day, you'll realize the universe isn't meant to be tidy!"
Both voices then laughed and faded away.
As Steven listened to the conversation he could see it. A vision rose to match the conversation. He saw the exact place where and when it had happened.
He saw a metal balcony overlooking a vast, sunlit city. Towers in every direction. Lights, twisting and curling like flames. A huge dome that dominated the horizon, catching the light of the twin suns and scattering it in shards of gold and copper.
Above him, the sky burned orange. Two suns hung low on the horizon—one of them bright white, while the other softer and orange.
He knew this place. For the first time in the last ten minutes he finally felt calm instead of dread, the place he sees is like something that is carved into his bones.
Home.
He looked back down at the watch sitting in his open palm. The mechanism that would open the watch—which had never budged before no matter how hard he tried—now seemed almost inviting. As it was beckoning him to try again.
Steven placed his thumb on the button, then he clicked the fob watch open.