Luke rubbed his eyes as he looked up from the book he was reading. He was sitting on the couch in the living room - with a nightlight turned on, as it had already gone dark. On the coffee table right next to him were two piles of books: one with those he had already finished and the other with ones he had yet to read. Chain isomerism was proving a fascinating topic. Yes, chemistry was definitely something he was interested in. Actually, he was interested in pretty much everything (maybe aside from art and poetry). The world was fascinating; he just couldn't understand why others didn't see it that way. Maybe if he lived long enough, it would eventually cease to amaze him too. After all, his friends had lived in this world much longer than he had - maybe his childlike awe was something that would disappear with age. But then again, there certainly was at least one person he knew who understood and shared his fascination with the universe. The Doctor. The Doctor, who, as it happened, had lately been very interested in Luke and his life. To the extent that Luke had caught the Time Lord actually stalking him at least twice - was 'stalking' he correct verb? He still couldn't quite get the hang of slang and modern language - and one of these days, when his friends weren't looking, he straightforwardly asked the Doctor what exactly he was doing. 'Just checking if everything's alright', apparently. Luke initially just shrugged it off. But then it started to become more and more suspicious: accidentally bumping into him at the grocer's or pulling him away from the street at just barely the last moment before he was run over by a motorbike... Even once the Doctor actually invited him to a chess match. It wasn't a good idea. The game ended with a definite draw and Luke later had had to explain himself to Sarah Jane as to why he had come home three hours later than usually.

It wasn't that the Doctor was prying his way into Luke's life, but the boy did notice his attempts to become a part of it. He initially didn't know what to do with the situation - he had considered asking Sarah Jane about it, but quickly dismissed the idea - and in the end decided to just accept it. It was actually good. The Doctor may not have been the most reliable person in the universe, but Luke was thrilled at the idea of having something like a father in his life. He embraced the fact that it was specifically the Doctor with joy - ever since he could remember, Sarah Jane had talked about him fondly and ever since he had first met the Time Lord in person, Luke looked up to him with admiration. He wasn't completely sure how to classify their newly-forming relationship, but he had never been very good with feelings and emotions, so he figured it was only natural.

Of course, as time went to pass, Luke found himself living something of a double life - his normal one on Bannerman Road: going to school, hanging out with friends and fighting aliens, and the occasional meetings with the Doctor. He couldn't decide which was closer to normal. Probably neither, but he couldn't actually think about that. He just didn't know where to place the Doctor in his life. He was beginning to think of him as the most definite father figure in his life, but had some restrictions from calling him 'dad' - he only did that once, after that whole business with Peter, but it was only to provoke the Time Lord so that he would come back later that day, so it didn't count. Of course, he remembered that he had initially had reservations about calling Sarah Jane 'mum' too, but if he remembered correctly - and he did, because he had a huge memory storage in his brain - it was Maria who had persuaded him into doing so. He didn't have Maria anymore. He didn't have anyone who knew about him and the Doctor. He would have to settle that on his own, then.

For now, his relationship with the Doctor was just only beginning to grow, so he couldn't possibly predict what would be its outcome. It was possible it wouldn't go anywhere - that the Doctor would get bored of this sort of thing, or regenerate and not want to have anything to do with Luke anymore - but there was also the tempting vision that soon Luke would actually grow close enough to the Doctor that he would be given access to the TARDIS and all those amazing things it held within. So far, he had only seen the spaceship thrice - only once from the inside, and even that mostly due to Sarah Jane's presence, which made the Doctor more open to the rest of them. It was almost as though the Doctor didn't want Luke to go anywhere near it, be it for Luke's sake or his own. Or maybe - Luke was beginning to notice that his imagination turned out to be quite powerful when it came to theorising - the Doctor was simply testing Luke. Whether he was interested in space-time travel or the Doctor himself. That was fine: Luke wasn't looking for adventure. He just wanted a father.

Luke stirred as a sudden noise made him snap out of his thoughts. He was so startled that he knocked down the chemistry book he had been reading. He quickly picked it up, found the page he had been reading, marked it with a piece of paper, and proceeded to investigate the source of the noise. It turned out to be his mobile phone. Luke took it in his hand and looked at the screen. He stopped.

"Mum?" He called, but Sarah Jane was nowhere to be seen.

And the phone still vigorously claimed that 'TARDIS' was calling.

Luke hesitantly answered the phone and put it to his ear.

"Hello?" He asked uncertainly.

"Luke!" The Doctor's voice was too overenthusiastic, just like almost always. "Great! Listen, I need your help! What's the sextet in the A-minor tonation with a bass key?*"

"...What?" He couldn't utter much more than that. This was a whole new level of invading his privacy - the Doctor was getting more and more creative with time.

"I'm writing a song!" Luke could practically hear the smile on the Time Lord's face. He was beaming with pride. "The Ode to the Universe, sounds good, dontcha think?"

Luke covered the phone's microphone with the palm of his hand.

"...Mum?!" He repeated.

"What is it?" answered Sarah Jane's voice coming from the kitchen.

"Do you have the Doctor's phone number?"

He could hear the muffled screams of "No, nonononono, Luke, don't hang up!" from his mobile, but decided to ignore them.

"What? Phone number?" She was surprised. "No, I doubt he even has a phone."

"The TARDIS is a phone box," Luke suggested, but he could already see the point: the Doctor was calling him and only him. He didn't know if he should feel more honoured or uncomfortable with that fact.

He looked down at the phone in his hand

"Nonono, don't hang up! Luke-! Lukelukelukeluke wai-"

Luke hung up.

He shook his head. Whatever was going on, it was slowly getting out of his control; it was a situation he was not used to. He just hoped it wouldn't continue to be that way.

oooOOO~OOOooo=

"Why are you doing this?"

The Doctor looked up from his glass of orangeade, clearly surprised by the sudden change of subject in the conversation.

"What do you mean?" He asked, fingers idly playing with the straw. The ice cubes in his drink had already melted, but still he chose to stir it.

"This. Everything." Luke wasn't sure how to put what was on his mind into words. "You and me. What's the reason behind it?"

The Doctor eyed him carefully for a few seconds, then burst into a short wave of laughter.

"I think you'll find I very rarely have a reason for the things I do." He took a sip of the orangeade, now completely ignoring the straw that he had been so focused on just a minute earlier. "Ask your mother. She would know best."

"Oh." Luke glanced down at the table. He hadn't been expecting this kind of answer, and it confused him a little.

"Why are you asking? Something wrong?"

Luke squinted his eyes as the sun came out of the clouds and shone straight in his face. The Doctor quickly reached into his jacket's pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses for him to use.

Luke stared at his hand holding the specs, as if surprised by that simple gesture, before finally accepting them and putting on.

"...I'm fine," he answered in the end. "It's just... This is all a bit surreal."

"Surreal?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow with a smirk. "For you, who've fought aliens and monsters, what can be surreal?"

"Well, we're sitting in a café." Luke reasoned. "A completely normal café."

"So it's normal." The Time Lord shrugged. "I don't see how that's surreal."

"It's you."

"Ah," he laughed. "Alright then. If that's the way you want to phrase it."

There was a moment of silence.

"So... has anything interesting happened lately?"

"Nah..." The Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "Got zapped onto another planet, though. In a bus. That was some fun."

"Hold on, that was this Easter." Luke narrowed his brows. "You've been gone for two days and what you've done is that you've gone back in time to April?"

"Time travel." He shrugged.

"Time travel." Luke repeated it much more respectfully.

The Doctor bit his lip, concerned by the longing in Luke's voice as he was saying the words. This was probably the only topic they hadn't discussed yet, and one of the few he would like to avoid discussing.

He really didn't want to play Luke around this way, but... Technically, this wasn't even telepathy. No encroachment on free will. Just a clever way of manipulating the conversation.

"Feel like playing chess?"

Luke nodded vigorously, a massive grin on his face.

"I'll pay," he offered happily and walked over to the counter. The Doctor watched him with a frown. He knew he couldn't keep things the way they were forever, but he also knew that he could at least try. Keeping Luke safe was all he wanted to do right now. Not that there was anything in particular endangering Luke's life at the moment, but he knew how his life rolled. So far things had been going great between them, but he knew that, sooner or later, he would make a mistake. It was always like that, but this time he was determined to keep things different. Luke wasn't one of his companions. He wasn't going to suffer because of him.

"Doctor?" Luke asked, making him suddenly aware of the reality around him. "Are you coming or what?"

The Doctor smiled, fighting to ignore the pang of guilt in his heart.

"Yeah," he said as he rose from the table. "I'll be right behind you."

Luke was a brilliant kid and, honestly, the last thing the Doctor wanted to do was to make him upset. Still, he couldn't help but feel guilty for the way he was cutting him away from real life. He couldn't do that forever, he couldn't just keep on shielding Luke from all the evil in the universe. It was childish of him to even think he would ever succeed in something like that, especially since Luke had already seen his share of evil in his short life. Maybe one day, I'll take him with me, he thought, but mostly just to keep his conscience from gnawing at him.

He looked down and sighed.

One day.


A/N: Wow. Just... wow. I wasn't expecting this amount of feedback so early, especially since SJA is a kinda niche fanfiction genre, but wow. Guys, you're amazing. Whoever you are and whenever you are reading this, thank you.

I had initially started this story as a bit of an experiment if I could write something like this, but now I see that I am definitely going to keep it going.
This is probably going to end up a series of one-shots - but completely different from my fic with the Doctor and Sarah Jane in many aspects: this is going to have loads of action and adventure and the chapters will be connected... I don't know. It might most resemble a TV show in its structure.
Anyway, this isn't important. The important thing is, this party has just only begun. I'm having great hopes for this one.

Side note: Do people drink orangeade in Britain? I don't know O.o All I know is that it's something I could imagine the Doctor and Luke drinking on a hot day (it's August now in this story, I think).

Review, and stay awesome.
-Wild


*I apologise for insulting anyone who knows a thing about music. I don't, so I just wrote something like this: it sounds like complete gibberish to me (it probably is) so it also sounds professional. Like many things the Doctor would say; sounds better than 'magic door'.