A/N: I do not own Edmund Pevensie, nor the TARDIS, nor Narnia, nor the Doctor, those all belong to either the estate of C. S. Lewis, or the BBC. Now, I need to tell you all that this story will make very little sense unless you choose to follow me for what I assume will be many years. Suffice it to say Edmund was picked up by the Doctor in his ninth incarnation before the episode Rose and after the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Also, this chapter was not beta read by someone other than myself so excuse mistakes and anyone who would like to beta read following chapters is free to ask, though do so at your own peril. Edmund is meant to look like Skandar Keynes, the actor who portrayed his character in the most recent films, you may imagine the other characters any way you wish. I also do not claim to know the names of the controls within the TARDIS, but I made an attempt at describing her in flight and I hope it is not absolutely horrid. Please read and review and enjoyment is optional, but preferred.

Edmund cut three more wires before replacing the panel cover, fairly sure he had just sabotaged the whole tracking system. He glanced over his shoulder one last time, not sorry to be leaving the dark, dingy interior of this TARDIS, he could go off on his own, he'd watched the Doctor (he would not think of that man as his father) often enough to know how to operate it, though he'd never seen the inside of the Type 70, but he'd taken the key.

He started off on a sprint down one of the winding halls, going off the map he'd memorized, twisting down right, then left, and left again... and there it was, old and new and the most beautiful tone of blue in the universe. He loved it.

With a trembling hand, Edmund pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked the door. He hesitated a moment, pulling back and eighth of an inch just before his fingers touched the handle. Are you a coward? part of his mind asked, like your father? That was all the motivation he needed. He grasped the door handle and pushed it open, stepping over the lip of the doorway with a determined look on his face. Of all the things he may become in the future, he would not be like the man who called himself his father.

The Type 70 was magnificent, though much different than the Type 40. The control panels were in a wide circle, following the contour of the walls, only small breaks for doorways and one spiral staircase leading up to a balcony with even more doorways. There was also a circular three-dimensional display at the center of the room, its own controls surrounding its darkened screen. Lights flashed on the pristine though long untouched controls, beautiful and irresistible.

Suddenly the PA system crackled to life and a voice played over the audio: "Edmund, come back," the thoroughly British voice pleaded.

"Like I ever would," he said, flicking a few switches and pushing the fortified time accelerator to maximum, but he had yet to release the throttle. "You aren't my father."

"Edmund, you can't fly the TARDIS!"

"Just you watch me." He punched in a random date, May ninth, 2012, perhaps he could escape there, learn about the world and keep running, run wherever whenever. Without another thought, he released the throttle and felt the floor shift beneath him, rocking so harshly that he fell backwards into the center panel. On insinct, Edmund pulled himself up and dragged back the atom accelerator, trying to calm the tremors.

Of course this was impossible, he realized a minute later, it took nine people to fly her properly and there was just him. Just me now. He did what he could, avoiding the flying sparks, pulling levers, and throwing switches until she finally made her final odd, whirring-slash-whooshing sound and fell silent.

Edmund took a deep breath and crossed the distance to the door, opening it to bright spring sunlight. He remembered he hadn't programed in a place of landing, he had no idea where in the bloody hell he was. He might not even still be in England for all he knew, but at least he'd only hopped seven years into the future, things shouldn't be too different. Most likely. Probably. Hopefully.

Sadly, when he stepped out he found the TARDIS had parked herself on the front lawn of a small house in a residential section. Not much of a place to lose yourself, he thought dejectedly. Edmund walked into the street and spotted a sign down at one end: 213th Pl. SW. No help at all, any number of streets could be called that in any part of the world. He knew he'd gone 66 years into the future in just a week, it should have been too much for him.

Edmund turned back to look at the house he'd parked in front of, a plain, grey colored single story with a door painted nearly the same color as the TARDIS which stood under the smallest of three huge maple trees that were lined up in the yard. The front drive was empty of all cars, but so were most of the ones he could see. Although, it had rained the night before and it was wet all over like nothing had been parked there all night at this particular house. His hand started to tingle annoyingly along with part of his chest and when he reached over to scratch his wrist, he felt a watch, a rather bulky one at that. Looking down at it, the numbers were scrolling over like a mileometer, after they stopped, the watch face read: 12:32 P.M. MAY 9TH, 2012, THURSDAY, BOTHELL, WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, NORTH AMERICA, SOL: 3/EARTH.

The door of the house swung open and a girl dressed in pants made of a dark blue material and a short-sleeved v-necked white shirt came out and sat down in the doorway, leaning against the left side jamb. Her long brown hair touched the ground but she didn't seem to notice, she was staring at him, the way he was staring at her, but he couldn't help it, she was pretty, and odd. Someone her age should have been in school right now, it wasn't a holiday, the watch would have said so. Out of nowhere, a black cat walked out from behind the rhododendron under the window and climbed into the girl's lap and she didn't take her eyes off him as she began to pet it. Before he knew what he was doing, Edmund was heading up the lawn pushing away tree branches until he reached the worn stone path that curved around the home-made planter from the front door to the driveway.

"Hello, Edmund," the girl said, her American twang dulled by the flow of her speech.

"How do you know who I am?"

"Oh, Edmund, I know more about you than you do yourself." Something about her voice made him sure she was somewhat amused.

"Well, since you know my name," he began, closing the distance between them so he was standing over her, "You might as well tell me yours."

She seemed to think for a moment and then said, "Beth. The cat is Helena."

"Why would I need to know what the cat's name is?"

"You don't," she said, her voice now further tinged with amusement, "I just felt like telling you. It has been quite a while since I've had anyone to talk to."

"Well, then, back to my first question; how do you know who I am?" he repeated.

"As I said before, I know more about you than you know yourself. Like who your father is," she said. "Which is actually something you know, but refuse to acknowledge." Something about her seemed familiar, the gleam in her eyes, the curve of her mouth, the cadence of her voice...

"I know who my father is," Edmund snapped.

"Tell me his name."

"Robert Pevensie, my mother's name is Helen," he said, his eyes narrowing

"Wrong," she told him, standing on the lip of the door and lowered her voice to a whisper. "Your father has a name, but it burns in the stars, can topple mountains, raze civilizations to the ground and inspire fear at it's very mention."

"That man is anyone but my father!" Edmund sneered.

"You are so stubborn," she said, rolling her eyes.

"What?"

"Your father didn't ignore you, Edmund! Just because you never saw him doesn't mean he wasn't there. No matter how far you run you will never get away from what you wish to deny. Good people always return to their roots."

"Why would he do it then?" he said in a voice that must've alerted half the neighborhood to his presence. Elizabeth gasped and pulled him quickly into the house, locking the door behind them.

"What are you trying to do?" she hissed, "Get yourself killed?"

"Why would I get killed?" he asked, but not like he expected a good answer.

"Because there are ex-Torchwood agents here who don't like the way things are now," Elizabeth told him, "We need to get the TARDIS inside before they find it." Just as she finished speaking, there was a loud explosion outside and the two rushed back out, looking around frantically like the few other people still home.

"She's gone." Edmund turned to look at her and saw a huge grin spread across her face.

"I'll get my coat," she said, patting his shoulder as she turned and ran back into the house. A few minutes later, she came back out wearing a dark brown aviator jacket that looked like it should be too hot for the weather and a pair of grey-ish shoes in a style he'd never seen, but then again, it was unsettling for Edmund to see any girl wearing pants, so strange wasn't much of a stretch.

"Well then, Sherlock," she said, still smiling, "Where are we off to first?"

"You find this fun?" he asked incredulously.

"A lot of things are more fun than just sitting in that house all day, waiting for you to show up, this happens to be one of them."

"Why and how were you waiting for me?" Edmund starting walking down the street, to the left of the house.

"Because I knew when and why you were coming, funny how I decided you would show up on my sister's birthday."

"Yes, just curious, where is your family, you can't be here all alone."

"I am." Beth looked far past the houses in front of them, as if seeing into another world. "On January 31st of this year, I woke up and everyone was gone, my parents, my brothers, my sister, even our cats, just gone. I found out later that I had come through a complicated space time event from my universe to this parallel, where everything is just a bit different. That's how I knew who you were. In my universe, you were a story, the Pevensie siblings who found a fantastic world... I read the Chronicles of Narnia when I was a kid."

"Nobody knows about Narnia," he said, sounding rather subdued.

"I do, most children in my universe know the story, but all the attention is on Lucy's faith, Peter's anger and Susan's obvious romance with Caspian so you became my pet project."

"That sounds really strange, you know that, right?"

"I thought about that after I wrote it."

"You mean said it," he corrected.

"No, I mean wrote it," Beth replied brightly, "I've already written this conversation, even though that's kind of a paradox."

"I guess," Edmund assented, confused.

"Am I boring you?" she asked, looking over at him with a worried expression.

"No, just confusing me."

"Same thing, it's boring if you don't understand."

"Not always."

"You're just trying to keep me talking so you don't have to, but you don't need to, I know you're angry, you just never say. It hurts to be ignored."

"How do you know? You knew who your family was."

"Yeah, but I was the youngest of all. Claire was the pretty one, the one everyone was crazy about, I was just... well, me." Beth had been leading the way for a while and by now they'd reached a newer looking group of uniform houses, the only difference being the doors they sported, unlike the older section her home was part of. "There it is." She pointed discreetly to a normal looking, three story house painted beige with the curtains pulled across every window. "The TARDIS is in there."

"How do you know?" he asked, still not sure about all of her hunches, they'd only just met after all.

"Believe me, I know, I wrote about it."

"Did you happen to write about how we got in?"

"Edmund, it's a house, not a government facility, there aren't as many options-" He cut her off.

"Oh my god! Can we get in or not!"

Beth looked slightly shocked and hurt when she said, "Yes. If we can climb up to the top floor, that is."

Edmund turned and a smile crept onto his face. "Well, I think we can." Elizabeth followed his gaze to a house down the street with a full grown ivy plant climbing all over one of the walls, probably strong enough to climb.

"You're kidding, right?" she asked worriedly.

"Why would I be?"

"I... we just met, of course you don't know, I mean why would you. I mean, I suppose it's so commonplace it's beneath mentioning..."

"Beth," he said, saying her name for the first time since they'd first exchanged words, "Don't tell me you're afraid of heights."

"Alright, I won't tell you."

He nodded, reevaluating. "This will be difficult."

"There's no other way, I'll climb it, I mean, only time I'm ever going to use meager rock climbing skills, right?"

"You don't have to come, I can do this alone," Edmund offered.

"No, Edmund, you can't, if I don't come with you, you'll probably end up dead or a lab rat."

"If I had a choice, I'd pick dead."

"Yeah, but you won't. They're just extremists, you know. Idiotic extremists, that is."

"Note to self: don't kill the misguided scientists, just hurt them."

"Fine with me, I'm not all too fond of Torchwood no matter what they're doing," she told him when they reached the vine.

"Well now," Edmund began, reaching up to find hand holds in the ivy, "This is where it gets interesting." She smirked when he wasn't looking, he had no idea.