SUMMARY: At the end of The End of Time, Wilfred does not get stuck in the scientist's machine. However (unfortunately), the Master still is Time Locked into Gallifrey with the Time Lords. The scientist in the machine thingy dies unnoticed to the Doctor's dismay, and he must take Wilf back to his home. The prophecy of his killer knocking four times still looms ominously overhead, but before his song ends he gains a few new companions and travels with them.

...

So, then. This was originally just to get me out of my writer's block but then I spent three days doing nothing but write this in my free time, shutting myself off from everything outside of my laptop. I told myself tonight to go and talk to irl humans at seven o'clock. The next time I looked at the time, it was 7:41. So I love this story with all my heart and I hope other people love it too because damn it this is longer than three chapters in lots of books. And I have so many ideas! (coughcough Jack coughcough) Not to mention I have evil things in store.

And a bit of a warning here: Out of all the times I've RPed the Doctor, I've done it most successfully and frequently as Eleven. I am best at writing as him, though I think I am pretty good most of the time with Ten. There may be the occasional OOC moment or a moment where he acts a lot like Eleven. I'll watch a few of his episodes this weekend to fully get myself into his character and then hopefully it will get better as we go. Also: there are a lot of things from the episode that I didn't change. Well, the other characters are still the same people. It's just the Doctor that's different. And, basically, how can I take out "Who da man?" "I'm the Doctor. Basically... run," and "Get a girlfriend, Jeff"?

So here we go! Allons-y!

"You have to bring Donna with you," Wilfred Mott begged as the Doctor took the TARDIS to his street, making sure to stay a bit away from his house specifically on the chance that Donna was home and would see it, which could never happen and he would never let it happen, though it pained him that he still came to this house so frequently but could never see her. "She's better, like I said! You can fix her, c-can't you? You can find a way, Doctor!"

"No, Wilf," the Doctor said quietly for what felt like the millionth time, but he was not annoyed. He knew how Wilf felt. He wanted Donna on the TARDIS just as much as Wilf did.

He looked down sadly and nodded.

The Doctor sighed slightly. "I'll see you again, Wilf," he promised, hoping he could follow through with it. He would hate to give him hope and for him to die, leaving the old man waiting for the remainder of his life to see the bigger-on-the-inside blue box floating through the sky. He knew that everyone he left behind, even if he didn't promise to see them again, looked through the sky for his TARDIS, but to confirm his return and never to come wouldn't be acceptable.

"Goodbye, Doctor," he said. He saluted and the Doctor looked away, heading back into his TARDIS and closing the doors.

"Bye, Wilfred," he muttered as he flew around the console, operating it on shuffle, confining it to Earth because he felt like having some of his normal human company—though inside he knew he longed for a companion, for a chance to not be alone. He now knew what that did to him and he now knew that it was not good for him to succumb to his loneliness by creating more loneliness. He felt nine hundred six years old for real and his companions made him forget how long he'd been alive and simply remember how long he'd been living. He needed more of that.

The TARDIS moved her swift, steady way to somewhere she decided to go. She ran smoothly due to his slow, careful flying of her. He was in no rush and therefore had little reason to operate her improperly and cause her to fly wildly about the Time Vortex. She chose somewhere peaceful—somewhat unpredictably, as she always took him where he needed to be and a small, quiet, sleeping town seemed like exactly the opposite of where he needed to be—and because of the smoothness and peacefulness of the flight, his expectations were for a steady landing. When was something ever that easy, though?

The TARDIS suddenly fluxed in and out of the Time Vortex, causing the Doctor to unexpectedly fall back from the console. This thereby rendered him unable to steady the TARDIS and she wildly threw him all over the room, crashing, crashing. "Interface!" he called out. "What's going on?"

The TARDIS chose a random person to be displayed as. Unfortunately, this person was Donna. He didn't have time to truly be saddened by the image, though, as the Interface evenly replied, "There have been interferences in our landing."

"What sort of interferences?" he exclaimed.

There was a short pause before the Donna's image answered unwaveringly, "Unknown."

The Doctor struggled to get up, muttering, "That's helpful," as the Interface faded. "Land us!" He helped his TARDIS do this, prancing around the console. He tried to keep himself up while at the same time trying to stabilize her. Finally, after some work and a lot of irritated grunts from both the Doctor and the TARDIS, they landed with a crash. Smoke was everywhere and there were small fires scattered around the console room. He extinguished them as quick as he could and then ordered for the extractor fans to turn on as he fled the TARDIS.

Outside was a garden, and he realized he'd landed into a random shed. He wished he could fly out of the random garden, or at least wander around the town looking for the interferences until he could fly away. But it was too late to do the latter when a little girl, no older than maybe eight, came out. She had red hair and was in her pajamas, holding a flashlight and narrowing her eyes at the strange man that flew a big blue box into her backyard.

"Who are you?" she asked, frowning.

He looked at her house as he told her, "I'm the Doctor."

She looked quizzically at his big blue box. "If you're a doctor… why does your box say 'police'?" she asked.

"Well, I'm not a doctor," he said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Amelia Pond," she said. "Are you a policeman, then?"

"Do you need a policeman?"

The girl looked up at the second story of her house and then looked back at him. "I'm not sure."

He frowned slightly. "How old are you? Where are your parents?"

"I'm seven," she said. She didn't answer his second question, which led him to believe that her parents were dead. She looked back at the second story of her house again and explained, "There's a crack in my wall." Amelia bit her lip and looked up at the Doctor, who was considerably taller than her due to the fact that she was a little girl and he was very tall compared to grown adults anyway.

"A crack?" the Doctor questioned her.

"Yes…"

"Does it scare you, Amelia Pond?" he asked, noting that her name was like a name in a fairytale but saying nothing of it, as she was talking and the crack seemed more important if she was acting like she was.

"Yes," she replied certainly, her voice as even as the TARDIS Interface's but with a more human quality to it—a bit of fear hidden underneath a layer of monotone that the Doctor picked out.

He looked down at her for a moment and then decided that perhaps it was more than a little girl getting scared. Maybe the crack in the wall was where the interferences were coming from. He held his hand out to her and told her to show her to the room where the crack was. As they went through her house, the Doctor couldn't notice how big it was and how many rooms there were, yet how painfully empty and quiet it seemed.

As they passed the kitchen, the Doctor peered in briefly and said, "Do you have bananas?"

She frowned at him, which made him smile slightly at her. "Um, yes," she answered.

"I'd love a banana."

She went into the kitchen and got a banana for him. He watched her walked back to him and then stop. Amelia went back into the kitchen and got herself a banana too, and then she delivered the Doctor's to him and giggled slightly as he peeled his and took the first bite out of it. Then, as they were eating their bananas, they went upstairs to Amelia's room.

"Who do you live with?" he asked Amelia.

"My aunt," she said as she took him into her room. He saw the large crack immediately and walked close to it, narrowing his eyes slightly. He got close and inspected it visually. He set his banana in his pocket. Then he scanned it with his sonic and frowned. He put his ear up to the wall near the crack for a moment and listened but no noise came. Eventually, when he was about to give up and pull his ear away, he heard it:

"PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED."

He pulled away and looked down at the girl awaiting his verdict, seeming to trust him already. The Doctor reminded himself grimly that most of them trusted him this quickly and this wholeheartedly, not to mention she was only seven years old and anyone who was checking in on fixing whatever scared her so much, even if they crashed into her shed, was a friend.

"Did you hear it?" she asked. She had finished her banana and tossed the peel onto her bed. "'Prisoner Zero has escaped'?" He nodded and she continued. "Sometimes it's really loud and I hear it when it's quiet and I can't sleep at night."

"Yes," he said. "Amelia, where is your aunt?" He continued to look at the crack and scan it. Then he pressed his ear against the wall and was listening for it to say something again, though he was still listening to the little girl too.

She said, "Out."

"You're alone?" he asked her, peering over at her briefly.

"I'm not scared."

"I know."

He stood up straight, holding his sonic at his side. He examined the crack one last time before beginning to talk to her. He felt the familiar rush of a new mission flooding him even though the excitement had yet to begin. At the same time he felt protectiveness over the little girl after losing so much. He wouldn't let whatever was behind the crack hurt her. And he knew, even though he was conflicted about his next companion, that she might be it when she got older. He wouldn't let her risk her life traveling with him at age seven.

"Amelia, the thing about this crack," he said, looking down at her, "is that it's not in the wall."

She looked up at him, watching him closely. "Where is it?"

"It's everywhere," he told her slowly as he thought it through in his head. "It is two parts of the universe that should never have touched, and they've been forced together right here in your wall."

"What does it mean?" she asked him before he could continue. She didn't seem as scared as she should be; leading him to believe that she was a very brave little girl. He liked her. "What the voice says."

"Well," he began, approaching the crack again and tracing over it, "'Prisoner Zero has escaped.' It means there is a prison on the other side of this wall, in another part of the universe, and guess what?"

"What?" she asked quietly.

"They've lost a prisoner," he told her.

He began to move her things away from the wall where the crack was and then he stood in front of it, sonic poised. "If we open it, the forces will invert and it will snap itself shut," he explained to her as he began sonicing the wall. "Or…"

"Or what?"

There was no time for him to answer this, just as he had planned. He didn't want to frighten her, but this was there only choice. The wall opened up with a brilliant white light to a dark hall. As his eyes adjusted he saw a prison cell and a large eyeball popped up in front of them, menacing and seeming to be saying, "PRISONER ZERO HAS ESCAPED!" even though it was only an eyeball.

Then a light shot from the eye to the Doctor's pocket, and he doubled over but not in pain. The wall snapped shut and a calculative Doctor pulled out his psychic paper as a half awed and half frightened Amelia asked, "What was that thing? Was it Prisoner Zero?"

"I told you it would close," he said to her, looking at his psychic paper. "I think it was its guard, but whatever it was it sent me a message."

"How?" she asked when he didn't explain.

"Psychic paper. Never mind. 'Prisoner Zero has escaped'…" He frowned. "But we already know that. Why tell us anyway?"

Amelia seemed to think he was still talking to her when he asked that and she shrugged confusedly. "I don't know."

"Unless… No, but you'd know!" He thought about the interferences with his TARDIS and wondered if it was Prisoner Zero impossibly going through a crack in time and through a girl's bedroom wall, into another world and possibly another time. It would have to resist being killed, if the other side of the crack was deadly at all… How he wished he knew where it was so he could investigate over there too.

"Unless what?" Amelia persisted.

"Unless it escaped through the crack," he said finally. He remembered the TARDIS, still smoking and flaming back in her garden. "The TARDIS!"

"The what?" she asked quizzically. Amelia followed as he raced out the door and suddenly stopped at the top of the stairs. He backed up and she scrambled out of his way as he looked around, particularly looking out of the corner of his eye. Then he shook his head and ran down the stairs, his trench coat flying behind him. He raced out to the garden and to his TARDIS. He burst in as the smoke rolled out, the extractor fans still working on clearing it.

"I'll just be a moment, hopefully…" he told her. "Don't mess with the crack! I have to do something!" The doors shut on her and the TARDIS faded. He left her staring in awe at the spot where the TARDIS had been. He left her waiting in her garden for the longest time.

…

He stabilized and fixed the TARDIS, managing to do so without having to have her completely remodeled. He particularly liked the console room and the design of all the other rooms and didn't want it to change. The ride back to Amelia's house was still a little bumpy but it was much better than crashing like before, and in the time it took to fix up his console he pieced together what he was missing. He ran out of the TARDIS as soon as she landed and raced to the door of her house.

"Amelia!" he called. The door was locked when he tried to open it, so he knocked. Well, it was more like insistent banging, but all the same. When after a few moments no one came to the door, he pulled out his sonic. He then realized with a start that it was morning, and it was the dead of night when he was there before. He'd left her waiting all night with that crack in the wall. "No, no, no, Amelia!" He soniced the door and ran inside, trench coat flaring out behind him. He hurried up the stairs and looked around, now knowing what to look for. But it still remained in the corner of his eye…

And then he felt pain suddenly in the back of his head and he fell forward, out like a light.

When he woke up again, a woman who looked startlingly like little Amelia—he assumed it was her aunt—stood before him in a policewoman's uniform. He blinked, his head still spinning slightly. He picked up her saying into a radio, "White male, mid-twenties, breaking and entering. Send me some backup. I've got him restrained." He sat up from his uncomfortable position and she said, "Oi! You: Sit. Still."

His head cleared a bit. "Cricket bat," he realized. "You hit me with a…"

"You were breaking and entering," she said, staring at him coldly. He tried to stand up to finish what he was doing and to find Amelia, but he was handcuffed to the radiator he was leaning against. He looked down at the handcuffs, frustrated. Then he felt in his pockets for his sonic, and when it was nowhere, he wondered how this woman knew to take it out of his pockets. Of course, if it was Amelia's aunt, she may have told her he used it to open the crack, but even still he doubted she'd believe it when a seven-year-old told her all that. "Yes, you're handcuffed. Sit still!"

"Are you Amelia's aunt?" he asked. "Where is she?"

This took the policewoman aback. "Amelia Pond?"

"Yes, little Scottish girl. I told her I'd only be a moment but the TARDIS was a bit bumpy-wumpy." He hoped it hadn't been too long because he now realized it'd been longer than just overnight since he'd seen the little girl. He remembered telling Wilf that he'd see him again and wondered how he could keep that promise if he couldn't even keep this one to a little girl in danger. "Nothing's happened to her, right?"

She answered quickly, "Amelia Pond hasn't lived her in a long time."

The Doctor leaned forward in shock, though he asked dubiously, "How long?"

There was a short pause, then: "Six months," the woman said quietly.

"What?" he exclaimed. "No, no, I'm not six months late!" He shook his head. "I promised her. Where is she? Why does she not live here anymore?"

The policewoman looked at the Doctor strangely. Then she began to talk into the radio again, ignoring his questions. "It's me again. Hurry. This guy know something about Amelia Pond."

The Doctor's face fell. She was making it sound like Amelia was dead… had been killed… By Prisoner Zero? he wondered. He told himself not to think about it. He couldn't even be sure she was dead until it was confirmed, and who knew when that would be. He would just have to try to save whoever currently lived in the house for now, and to do that he would need to see them.

"Who lives here?" he asked.

"I live here," she said. That made a bit of sense though it slightly confused him. She was the police… He set it aside as quickly as it had come up.

"How many rooms are on this floor?" he asked her.

She frowned. "I'm sorry—what?"

"How many rooms?" he repeated insistently. "Tell me now."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because. Just do it."

She looked at him like he was crazy but did what he said anyway. "Five."

"Six," he corrected her grimly.

"Six?" This only seemed to strengthen the idea in her mind that he was completely insane.

"Look exactly where you don't want to look. Look where you never, ever look," he told her. The look in her eyes told him that she knew what he was talking about somewhere in her mind and that was exactly what he had been expecting and hoping. He continued. "Look out of the corner of your eye. Behind you."

She did so with fear in her eyes, as if she somewhat knew what was back there and her mind was unsuccessfully trying to tell her not to look behind her. She stared at that sixth room's door. She shook her head as she spoke. "That's not—that isn't—that is not possible. How is it possible?"

"There's a perception filter all around that room," he told her, scowling at his own ignorance. "I sensed it last time I was here, and I should've seen it but I didn't."

The woman was still in shock. "That… is a whole room… I've never even noticed," she said, obviously very confused.

"You couldn't have noticed it. Uncuff me. Something came a long time ago to hide in there," he said. She was shaking her head. "Uncuff me."

She began approaching the door, which panicked him slightly. She couldn't go in there. "I don't have the key. I lost it."

"Lost it!" he cried. She was still approaching the door, and it irked him how he was stuck to the radiator and couldn't stop her. "Stay away from that room!" She did not listen. She came up to the door and twisted the knob. "Get away. Stay away from that door." The door creaked open and she slipped him. He pulled his restrained wrist forward as if the cuffs would fall off. "Listen to me! Get out!"

He sighed and checked again for his sonic as he called, "Where did you put my screwdriver? Blue at the end, all silvery. Where is it?"

"There's nothing here," she called in response.

He rolled his eyes. "You've lived here for six months and never noticed the door, and you really expect to see what's in there?"

She didn't answer, which frustrated him to no end. "You said it was silver?"

"My screwdriver? Yeah."

"It's in here."

"It must've rolled under the door. Get it and get out!"

He could hear her footsteps on the creaky wood in the mysterious room. "Yeah, it must've. And then it must've hopped up on the table."

He leaned forward again. "Get out of there!" He heard more creaky footsteps. "What are you doing?"

"There's nothing here. But…"

"Corner of your eye," he reminded her.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Don't look at it. It's very dangerous. If it's tried this hard to keep you from seeing it, it won't be happy when you do."

Then she screamed and he yelled for her to get out, pulling hard on the restraints until his wrist hurt. She came running from the room and up to him. She handed him the screwdriver, which was covered in goo. He soniced the door until it locked, though the screwdriver was a bit off from whatever was done to it. Then he pointed it to his wrist but it wouldn't go to the right frequency to unlock the handcuffs. He looked at it and banged it against the handcuff.

"Will the door hold it?" she whispered.

"Definitely. Because every deadly alien is terrified of wood," he said sarcastically. She looked down at him briefly. "It will for a moment, but it'll get through."

"What's it doing?" she asked.

He looked up at the door and saw a bright, golden light coming from it. "I don't know," he answered honestly. "Run. I'll be fine. Your backup's coming, yeah?"

"There is no backup," she admitted.

He looked up at her, frowning. "Yes, there is. I heard you call for backup."

"I was pretending. It's a pretend radio," she told him.

"But you're a policewoman."

"I'm a kissogram!" she exclaimed, rolling her eyes as she pulled off her hat. Red hair fell down over her shoulders and the Doctor frowned even more. There was no time to ask why she was pretending to be a policewoman, though, as the door fell forward and a workman with a tool belt accompanied by a big black dog burst from the room. "But it's just—"

"Is it, though?"

The man let out a vicious growl and a series of loud barks.

"What?" she said. "I'm sorry, but what?" She looked down at the Doctor.

Amused, he said, "It's a multiform. One creature disguised as two, but I suppose it was a bit rushed. You got the voices mixed up there, didn't you?" He directed his question to Prisoner Zero. "Where'd you get your form from, though? You need a psychic link. How'd you fix that?"

Prisoner Zero viciously growled again and began approaching them. It opened its mouth so long, terrifying teeth could be seen. The woman stepped backward.

"Okay, stay away! She sent for backup!"

"I didn't send for back up!"

"That was a lie so it wouldn't kill us," he said snappily. "Right, no backup. We're no threat. You don't have to kill us alone, yeah?"

"ATTENTION, PRISONER ZERO. THE HUMAN RESIDENCE IS SURROUNDED. ATTENTION, PRISONER ZERO. THE HUMAN RESIDENCE IS SURROUNDED," a voice boomed.

"What's that?" she whispered.

"Backup. Okay, so we have backup! That's why we're safe."

"PRISONER ZERO WILL VACATE THE HUMAN RESIDENCE OR THE HUMAN RESIDENCE WILL BE INCINERATED."

Prisoner Zero walked into the next room.

"That sounds like fun, doesn't it?"

The voice repeated itself as he struggled to get his sonic to work. He went through several frequencies before, finally, to his relief, the handcuffs opened and he stood up. "Run!" he shouted. He let her go first and they ran out of the house. He decided now was the time to ask her about pretending to be a policewoman, and that's what he did.

"You broke into my house! It was this or a French maid. Now what's going on?" she asked.

"There is an alien prisoner that's hiding in your spare room and its guards are going to incinerate your house," he explained as he stepped up to the TARDIS. He looked over at her.

"Wh—"

He put his finger up to his lips and said, "I don't know anything else." He wiggled the key in the lock and then yanked it out. "She won't let me in!" He peered through the window of the TARDIS. "She's on fire again!"

"What? She? What?"

"PRISONER ZERO WILL VACATE THE HUMAN RESIDENCE OR THE HUMAN RESIDENCE WILL BE INCINERATED."

The woman yanked on his arm. "Come on." She began to pull him away from the TARDIS, but he struggled as he noticed something.

"That shed!" he exclaimed. "I landed on it last time…" He frowned and ran to it once he got away from her. She ran after him. He rubbed his finger along the wood and licked his finger. "It's been rebuilt."

"Your point?" she snapped.

He held up his finger. "It's been rebuilt for at least twelve years."

Prisoner Zero barked angrily behind them in the window he'd been watching them from, both the dog and the man's mouth opening with each bark.

"Come on," she urged him. "We have to go."

"Why did you lie?"

She grabbed his arm again. "Let's go!"

He pulled his arm away, and then decided that she was right. "Tell me on the way!"

"The way to where?"

He didn't answer. He took off toward the gate and the woman followed. They ran until they were out in the street and then he stopped her again, looking at her expectantly. She refused to meet his gaze but she didn't look away from him, nor did she answer. She seemed to be trying to avoid his look, knowing that if she saw it directly there would be no choice but to answer his questions, and she seemed to be quite adamant not to do.

"Why did you say six months?" he demanded.

"We have to go now!" she exclaimed.

"PRSONER ZERO WILL VACATE THE HUMAN RESIDENCE OR THE HUMAN RESIDENCE WILL BE INCINERATED."

"Why—did—you—say—six—months?"

"Well, why did you say just a moment?" she yelled at him.

His eyes widened. He couldn't have made her wait twelve years. Couldn't have. It was not possible. He told her that he would be just a moment… How could he have been so unreliable? The TARDIS must've been more worked up than he thought. He wondered if she was rebuilding, and he hoped not but he would much prefer that to a broken console in his TARDIS.

"What?" he said. She began to run away from her house and the Doctor easily caught up. He slowed to keep the same pace as her and repeated himself: "What?"

"Oh, shut up!" she snapped as they ran down the village lane, a cyclist riding by them.

"I said just a moment!" he said.

"I'm aware," she snapped angrily.

"You're Amelia."

"If you hadn't noticed."

He frowned and put two and two together, though slowly in his shock. He still didn't fully believe—or understand—that this was Amelia Pond, the little girl who was afraid of the crack in the wall and whose parents were dead. The little girl who gave him a banana not a half hour ago? It didn't seem possible… No, it didn't seem likely. Apparently it was very, very possible.

"And I'm late."

"You just might be."

"What happened?" he said, mostly to himself.

She turned to him and stopped running. He stopped running too and faced her. "I waited twelve years!" she yelled at him.

"But you hit me with a cricket bat," he said, frowning.

"Twelve. Years."

"It hurt."

She glared at him. "I waited for you for twelve years and went through four psychiatrists."

"You went through four—"

She looked away from him and walked quickly away. He followed her. "I kept biting them."

"You bit your psychiatrists," he stated, raising his eyebrows. "Why?"

Amelia looked over at him as if to make sure he was real as she admitted sheepishly, "They kept saying you weren't real."

"I am," he said quietly.

"PRISONER ZERO WILL VACATE THE HUMAN RESIDENCE OR THE HUMAN RESIDENCE WILL BE INCINERATED." The eye's voice blared from an ice cream truck's speakers. "REPEAT."

It indeed repeated.

Amelia shook her head. "No, no, no," she groaned. "Come on. What? We're being staked out. By an ice cream van."

He looked over at her. "It seems we are." The Doctor ran to the ice cream van and asked, "Why are you playing that? What is it?"

"It's supposed to be Clair De Lune…" The ice cream man looked beyond freaked out by the Doctor's strangeness as he picked up the radio, spun it around, and walked off.

He stopped at the end of the ice cream van, though, and he listened. It was coming out of more than one device now: "REPEAT. PRISONER ZERO WILL VACATE THE HUMAN RESIDENCE OR THE HUMAN RESIDENCE WILL BE INCINERATED. REPEAT." He got a sick feeling in his stomach as the truth rose to his mind but he decided not to say it until he was absolutely sure.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Amelia asked.

He ran off across the road and went through the gate of someone's home. He barged in on an old woman messing with her remote, staring confusedly at her television screen. A big blue eyeball was on the screen of every channel she flipped to and it said the same thing all the radios, cell phones, iPods, and anything else that produced sound said. He took out his psychic paper and held it up to her as he took her remote. He didn't know what it said but she seemed satisfied.

"I was just about to call! It's on every channel," she complained, though in a cheery voice. Amelia soon joined him in her living room and in an even cheerier voice she said, "Oh, hello, Amy dear. Are you a policewoman now?"

"Um, sometimes, Mrs. Angelo," she said.

"I thought you were a nurse."

"I can… be a nurse," she admitted.

"Or actually a nun?" Mrs. Angelo asked quietly.

"I dabble," Amelia said with a light laugh. The Doctor looked up and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Amy, who's your friend?" she asked.

The Doctor frowned. "Wait—Amy? You're called Amy now?"

"Yeah," she said, narrowing her eyes slightly at him.

He looked back down at the remote and continued to flip channels. "Amelia Pond was a great name."

She rolled her eyes at him and said nothing, which made the Doctor feel even guiltier for putting Amelia—Amy—through the hell that her childhood must've been. Everyone must have thought she was crazy, and it would not have helped for her aunt to be the only guardian she had. It would be better for her if she had parents too to help her through whatever she went through, waiting for him to come back.

"I know you…" Mrs. Angelo said, looking up at the Doctor, "don't I? I've seen you somewhere before."

"Ah, maybe," he said. "Probably, actually." He looked up at Amy. "What sort of thing do you do as a kissogram?"

"I go to parties and I kiss people," she said awkwardly. "With outfits," she added. "It's a laugh."

"I just saw you and you were seven!"

Her brow furrowed. "You're worse than my aunt," she accused.

"I'm worse than everybody's aunt, Amelia Pond," he said, getting back to his work. He scanned a radio and the same announcement came on in different languages as he soniced. "Well, then, this isn't very good. It's everywhere… every language. Hmm." He went to the window and looked up at the sky briefly before he began rambling to himself in his normal tech babble that no one else in the room even slightly understood. "Earth, Earth, Earth. Two poles, yeah? Your basic molten core… They'll been at least a forty percent fission blast. But to power up first…"

A young man walked into the house and stopped when the Doctor started pacing toward him. He was just as tall, if not slightly taller, than the man, but he was thinking about the aliens wanting to incinerate Earth more than the height of a random man compared to his height.

"So if they're a medium size…" He ran through the math in his head one more time. "We've got twenty minutes to save the world, Amy."

"Are you the Doctor?" the man that walked into the room asked.

The Doctor spun toward him. "What?"

"He is, isn't he?" Mrs. Angelo asked, and the Doctor turned back to face her. "The Doctor! The Raggedy Doctor. All those cartoons you drew when you were little, Amy. The Raggedy Doctor."

Amy smiled politely at the old woman and cleared her throat. "Shut up," she whispered.

"Raggedy?" the Doctor said, looking out the window. He ran a hand through his hair and looked down at his clothes, which he realized now were ripped and a bit burnt. "Oh."

"Gran, it's him, isn't it?" the man behind the Doctor asked.

"Jeff, shut up," Amy said.

The Doctor grabbed Amy's hand and pulled her toward the door. He walked out with her and down the street, passing a couple unsuspecting people going along with their daily routines, having absolutely no idea that the world was ending. It was better that way. The less panic there was among the people, the easier it would be for the Doctor and Amy to get the planet safe and Prisoner Zero into its guards' arms once again.

"What are you talking about—twenty minutes to save the world?" she asked the Doctor as they walked with quick strides down the mostly empty, very quiet street.

He looked over at her briefly. "You know how I said they were going to incinerate your house?" he asked her.

"Yeah…" she said warily.

"Well, I was wrong. By 'human residence' they mean the planet."

"Where are we?" he asked, looking over at her.

"Leadworth," she answered.

He looked over at her and then around at the street. "Is this it?"

"Yes," she told him.

"No airport? Nuclear power planet? Where's the nearest city?" he asked speedily.

"No, no, and Gloucester, which is half an hour by car," she explained to him.

"Great. We don't have that much time but do we have a car?" he asked.

"No."

"So I've got a sonic screwdriver and a post office to save the world with. Oh, look, and it's not even open."

I split Ch1 into two parts because it was really long and edited some of the idiotic typos I caught.