Lyssa Devons sighed as she settled into her seat in the airplane. Impatiently shoving her dark brown bangs out of her face, she buckled the seat-belt and prepared for a very long trip to England. Leaning back against the headrest, she closed her brown eyes wearily, only to open them again as her smartphone buzzed in her purse. Unzipping the bag, she glanced at the screen and rolled her eyes. Her mother was calling her. Again.

She hesitated for a minute, contemplating just tossing it back in her bag, but decided to answer one more time before saying goodbye for good. She swiped her finger across the answer icon, and held the phone up to her ear.

"Hello?" she answered reluctantly.

The answering screech made her wince. "Alyssa Mae Devons, where are you? I just checked my bank account and found that over ten thousand dollars have been withdrawn! What did you do?"

Lyssa forced herself to keep her voice calm. "The ten thousand dollars were mine, Mom. The only reason it was in there in the first place was because you refused to let me open another bank account, and I know that you've been taking money out of it. You can keep the rest. I won't need it anymore."

"You ungrateful child!" her mother fumed. "After everything I gave up for you, and you try to rob me like this? Where are you?"

Lyssa looked around. "Looks like a plane to me. So don't worry. You won't have to be bothered about 'sacrificing' yourself for me anymore. Not that you ever did in the first place, so it shouldn't be too hard for you to adjust."

"A plane?" her mother screeched. "And just where do you think you're going?"

Lyssa snorted. "As if you actually care. If you must know, I'm leaving. For good. I'm moving to England to stay with some friends for a while. I've got everything I need, and you can take the rest of my stuff and sell it like you always threatened to do anyways. I'm twenty years old, so it's perfectly legal for me to do this. And if you really cared that much about me going, you would have noticed me preparing for this a long time ago. So go sell my stuff and party all night like you always do. I don't care anymore."

Her mother's voice changed to a sickly-sweet voice. "Now, Alyssa, you know that I've only ever tried my hardest to raise you all by myself after your father died. I know I made a few mistakes along the way, but surely none bad enough to warrant this kind of a reaction. Now why don't you get off that plane, and come home, and we can work this out."

Lyssa just shook her head. "We've tried that before, Mom. Remember? It lasted for about two weeks before you went out partying every night again, then spending the mornings yelling at me for not doing what you had never told me to do. I've tried to make it work, but it's clear that you're not going to change. So thanks for raising me, but it's time for me to move on."

"Alyssa," her mother started, before Lyssa cut her off.

"It's Lyssa, Mom. You know that I don't like being called 'Alyssa.' I've never liked it. You can't respect my boundaries, you can't even respect my request to be called 'Lyssa.'" She looked up. "Sorry, Mom. Looks like the flight attendant's about to start the safety spiel, and I'll need to put my phone away for that. I'll try and send you a note sometime from England. Bye." Ignoring the loud tirade that started to stream from the phone, she hung up and instantly set her phone to airplane mode so that she couldn't receive any more calls from her mother.

Tucking her phone back into her purse, she sighed and would have gotten a drink from her water bottle, but just then the person who was due to sit next to her finally arrived and sat down, squishing her into her seat and off the armrest. She looked at the man next to her angrily. He just shrugged, making the fat rolls on his arm jiggle.

She rolled her eyes and curled up by the wall, glad that she at least got a window seat. Forcing herself to pay attention to the safety talk by the attendant, she watched with gratitude as the plane finally took off from the runway and began the roughly eight hour flight to England. Pulling out her earphones and phone, she pulled up an episode of Doctor Who and began to watch, glad that she had downloaded several of the seasons onto her phone before she had left.

xXx

Four hours later, she had watched six episodes, and was getting rather tired of sitting still for so long.

She shifted in her seat, trying not to bother the man next to her, who was staring at a newspaper trying to figure out the crossword puzzle. She sighed and looked out the window, before doing a double take. It was nearly noon, so the stewardesses would be bringing lunch by soon, but outside it was nearly black. And she could have sworn it was sunny just an hour or two ago.

A ding at the front of the plane caught her attention. Glancing up, she saw that the "'fasten seat-belt' light was on. She was in the middle of tightening her seat-belt when one of the stewardesses spoke on the intercom.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to be encountering some unexpected turbulence ahead due to an unforeseen storm. Please fasten your seat-belts and all loose items. Thank you." Lyssa frowned, worried. She had checked the weather before she left, and it said nothing about a storm anywhere along her flight path. Making sure her seat-belt was fastened securely, she put her phone and earphones into her bag, then tucked them underneath her seat.

And not a moment too soon, as they apparently encountered the edge of the storm just then. It started out gentle enough, just a minor shaking of the plane. It didn't stay that way, though. It quickly got worse, and the plane was soon filled with the clatter of items falling onto the floor as people failed to put some of their loose items away.

Beside her, the large man seemed to be growing nervous. "Why are we dealing with turbulence?" he blustered. "Planes are supposed to go around thunderstorms, not through them!" As his question did not appear to be directed at anyone, she ignored him and looked out the window. Unfortunately, his statement seemed to be true, as she saw a flash of lightning nearby, followed by another. The stewardess got on the intercom again.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please do not be alarmed. While we have encountered a thunderstorm, our pilots are working on flying us out and around the storm this very moment. The airplane is perfectly safe, and has been designed to fly safely through storms just such as this one. Please remain calm."

"Calm," the man next to her muttered. "Calm, when we could go down at any minute?"

Lyssa rolled her eyes. She would get stuck next to a hysterical person. Another flash of lightning, followed by a booming sound as the plane shook again made several passengers scream.

"Oh my gosh, we've been hit by lightning!" the man shouted.

The stewardess came on the intercom again, sounding a bit frazzled. "Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm," she implored them. "The airplane is perfectly safe, and has sustained no damage from the storm. However, we are going to be facing more extreme turbulence before we can escape the storm cell, so please remain in your seats." Another flash of lightning followed by some more violent shaking seemed to punctuate her statement.

Lyssa drew in a breath, and blew it out of her nose, forcing herself to remain calm, reminding herself that the plane was most likely going to be fine. Hundreds of airplanes navigate safely through thunderstorms every year, she reminded herself, trying to ignore the way her neighbor was gripping the armrests so tight his knuckles were white, and the way he tightened his grip every time the plane shook, which was growing more and more frequent.

Outside the window, the lightning strikes were flashing more often, and the turbulence was getting rougher. When a particularly close lightning strike was followed by a shaking, and a sudden, severe dip of the plane, her heart started racing, and she couldn't help but grip her armrest as tight as the man next to her.

When another flash of lightning was followed by a loud bang, and the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling, she stared at it in shock. Quickly gathering her wits, she placed it around her mouth and strapped it on, breathing in the supplied oxygen.

Noticing the man next to her was having some trouble, and seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating, she quickly helped him fasten it around his head. He nodded at her in gratitude, but she wasn't looking at him any longer. Looking around to make sure that everyone else around her had their masks on, she tried to keep her breathing even.

The stewardess came on again. "Ladies and gentlemen, please put the masks on, as we have experienced a loss in cabin pressure, and are going to be forced to make an emergency landing on an island below. Please assume the brace position, and put your hands over your heads."

Lyssa gasped in fright, bending over and placing her hands above her head, noticing that the plane was now sharply angled downwards, and she could see lightning still striking furiously through the window. Thunder was near constantly booming, but she forced herself to close her eyes.

The landing, when it came, was less jarring than she had expected, although she winced when something heavy landed on her hands, and she could feel some of her bones cracking in her left hand. After a minute of sliding and screams from some of her fellow passengers, the plane gradually came to a standstill.

Cautiously moving her hands, she slowly sat up and looked around her. The plane was a mess, but most of the people seemed to be all right.

Removing her mask, she called out, "All right, people, we need to get off the plane, NOW!" As the people by the emergency exit doors began to open them and quickly file off the plane, she hurriedly unbuckled herself and urged the man next to her to do the same. Once free, he started to grab his carry-on bag from above. "No!" she snapped. "We don't have much time, and you're blocking people's exits. You can get it later!" He reluctantly agreed and started heading down the aisle towards the door.

Hurrying down the steps, she saw all the passengers were heading in a rush towards what seemed to be a cave a short distance from the rocky beach the plane had landed on, trying to outrun the lightning which was still striking furiously. Standing by the exit, she ushered people towards the cave.

"Keep going towards the cave!" she yelled. She noticed one old man trying to help his apparently injured wife down the steps. Hurrying up, she placed the elderly woman's other arm around her shoulders and helped them down. They tried to thank her, but she shook her head and pointed towards the cave. "Get into the cave!" she shouted over the thunder and raging winds. She glanced back to see the crew slowly come out of the plane.

She tried to see if they needed help, but the pilot, at the front of the group, shook his head. "Everyone's on their way out. Get to the cave!" he shouted, trying to make himself heard.

She nodded, and took off for the cave, the wind blowing her ponytail every which way. She was almost to the cave when she saw it coming. A few of the others saw it too, and stopped in horror. She barely had time to instinctively raise her hands above her head to try and futilely protect herself when the lightning struck her, the light searing her retinas and making her hair stand on end.

She was instantly sent tumbling, over and over, in every direction conceivable. When she finally stopped whirling and managed to open her eyes, wondering that she was even still alive, she froze in horror at the sight before her. She was not lying on the rocks of some island in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by her fellow survivors and a plane.

Instead, she was slowly spinning around in what seemed to be space, with galaxies and nebulae and stars flowing past her. And all around her was a golden vortex that seemed to go on forever. Frightened, she gasped, only to stop as she realized that she was breathing.

Cautiously she drew another one, then another. "Okay," she said in a shaky voice. "I'm breathing. In space. I'm hallucinating. I need to wake up now, please."

She looked around her, but found no one, saw no end to the vortex and galaxies spinning by. She clutched her hands to her head, only to instinctively jerk her hand back when she felt a sharp pain in her left hand. Clutching her wrist, she remembered how something had fallen on her hand during the crash landing. Whatever it was must have broken one or more of her bones, or bruised her enough that it felt like it was broken.

Gritting her teeth, she tried to think of some way to deal with it. Glancing down, she saw her pink scarf fluttering around her neck in the winds and gently brushing against her jean jacket. Carefully undoing the knot with her uninjured hand, she slowly pulled it off her neck, and began to painstakingly wrap it around her hand and fingers in an attempt to keep them from moving, as now that she was aware of the pain it was starting to increase. Once she was done, she managed to tie it into a rough knot that would hopefully hold. Finished with that, she looked around at her surroundings again, only to find that nothing had really changed.

Closing her eyes, she chanted, "It's a hallucination, I'm dreaming, this is all just a dream. I got struck by lightning, and now I'm in a coma, and dreaming that I'm in space. It's just a dream, it's just a dream." Curling into a ball, she placed her hands over her head and tried to block out the impossible sights that were happening right in front of her. "It's just a dream," she pleaded, her voice breaking on the last word.

xXx

She'd been curled up in this position for several hours, when she felt something change. The spinning seemed to stop, and she felt something stable form beneath and behind her, leaving her curled up on some sort of platform. She heard the wind start to fade, but only shrunk tighter into her ball and clutched her broken hand to her chest, and wrapped her other hand protectively around her head, refusing to open her eyes.

She sat like this for a few minutes, trying to even out her shaky breathing, when she heard footsteps approaching. Eyes jerking open, she cautiously peered out from behind her arm. She heard the footsteps come closer, and jerked back, only to stop when she realized that there was something blocking her escape route. Glancing behind her, she saw that she was leaning against a sort of glass pillar that was covered in wires, and there was junk all around her.

"It's not here!" a male voice called in a British accent from somewhere above her, making her cringe and try to shrink into the pillar.

"Well, then, look below the console. It's got to be there somewhere!" another British voice called back. A loud sigh followed by descending, clattering footsteps made her panic as she realized that they were coming towards her.

Shrinking into the pillar as much as she could, she tried to make herself small and invisible, wrapping her arm even tighter around her head. The footsteps came closer, then stopped.

"Lyssa! Are you all right?"

She froze. That voice - it couldn't be. Slowly uncurling her arm, she looked up and confirmed her fear. There, standing in front of her, looking very concerned, was Rory Williams, one of the characters from the show she had watched earlier that day, complete with plaid shirt.

"No, no, no, no, no," she mumbled in growing hysteria, trying to back away from him.

He crouched down in front of her slowly, one hand out towards her, the other on his chest. "Lyssa, it's me. Rory. Rory Williams? You remember me, don't you?"

She shook her head slowly, eyes darting all over the place, searching for any sign of possible threats. "Who are you, really?"

He looked confused. "I'm Rory Williams. Amy's husband. We travel with you and the Doctor." He paused and tried to come closer.

Lyssa instantly panicked, and tried to scramble away. "No, stay back!" she pleaded, trying to use her hands to scoot backwards and around the pillar, only to put weight on her injured hand and cry out.

He instantly froze, both hands up in the air. "No, no, it's all right. I'll stay here, I promise. Just, don't freak out. Okay?" He waited for her to slowly nod, and her breathing to calm before continuing. "Do you really not know who I am?" he asked.

She ran her eyes up and down his body. "I know who you are, but I also know that it's not possible," she said shakily, clutching her injured hand to her chest again.

Rory nodded slowly, keeping his voice calm and steady. "Okay. Um, well, then let's just say that I have one of those faces, all right? I get mistaken for people a lot. But I promise that I'm real, and that I'm a nurse. I know that your hand hurts. Can I see it? Maybe I can help."

Lyssa eyed him warily. He maintained his open demeanor, and held out his hand, palm up. After a minute of tension, she decided that things couldn't get much worse than they were now, and held out her hand for him to examine. He carefully placed his hand under it, then gently untied and removed the scarf. He was just about to examine it when a voice rang out from above them, startling them both.

"Rory! What's taking so long? You should've gotten it by now, it's not that hard to find!" The voice was accompanied by footsteps striding into the room above them. Lyssa instantly retracted her hand, and jerked back into the pillar.

Rory threw up his hands again. "No! Don't worry! It's just the Doctor!" Raising his voice, he called, "Doctor, I'm down here. And you might want to see... this."

"See what? Rory, who are you talking to?" the man's voice called back, coming down the stairs. "And you might want to hurry, Amy's getting very..." he cut himself off as he rounded the pillar and saw them sitting there. "Impatient," he finished weakly. "Lyssa?"

Lyssa froze, staring at the impersonation of the Eleventh Doctor. He started to rush towards her, only to stop when she flinched back from him.

Rory held up a hand. "Doctor, I don't think she knows who we are."

"Yes, she does," the Doctor clone tried to argue. "She always knows who we are." He paused, apparently seeing the look of shock on her face. "Don't you?" he asked uncertainly.

"What am I doing here?" Lyssa asked shakily. "How did I get here? What is this place?"

The Doctor's face fell. "Lyssa. Please tell me you know who I am."

She frowned, trying to keep the hysterical edge out of her voice. "Why do people keep asking that? First him, and now you. What's going on? And how do you know my name?" she demanded.

The Doctor swallowed hard and sat down carefully next to Rory. "Lyssa," he said softly. "What I'm about to tell you is going to be very hard to hear, and believe me, I am so, so sorry about this. But I'm the Doctor, and this is Rory Williams, and his wife, Amelia Pond, is upstairs. You're in my TARDIS, and everything you know about me is real."

She shook her head disbelievingly. "Not possible. I'm still dreaming after that blow to the head. It's not real, you're not real, and I'm not in the TARDIS."

The Doctor sighed. "You warned me it'd take a while for you to accept it," he muttered, before continuing in a louder voice. "All right, then. Would you believe you were in the TARDIS if I proved it to you?"

Lyssa swallowed before answering. "Sure. But it won't matter, because I'm dreaming all of this anyways."

The Doctor sighed again, but held out his hand for her to take. She eyed him warily for a minute before placing her uninjured hand in his. He gently helped her up, then started leading her towards the stairs, Rory following close behind with a worried expression on his face. Lyssa slowly followed him up the stairs, noting how her brain had included the shiny metal parts for the walls, before reaching the top of the stairs and coming to a halt as she realized that she was staring at the console room of the TARDIS.

"No way," she breathed, turning around and taking it all in.

The Doctor smiled proudly. "Lyssa Devons, welcome to the TARDIS," he declared, throwing his arms out wide.

Limping up to the console, Lyssa reached out a hand to touch the center, only to jerk it back when it started to glow golden, and her hand did the same. The Doctor was going on about something in the console room, so she quietly made her way over to the doors, hoping to be able to make it out of there before they could catch her. She was about a foot away when Rory realized what she was doing.

"Lyssa, no!" he called, running towards her. But he was too late. Jumping towards the doors, Lyssa pulled one open and darted out, only to be jerked back a moment later, and just in time, before she fell out into the same empty vastness of space that she had seen earlier.

"Ho-how?" she stammered weakly, staring out at a spiral galaxy in front of them. Tugging her fully back into the TARDIS, the Doctor pulled her into his arms and shut the door, with Lyssa too shocked to resist.

"You're in the TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. What you just saw was space. We're floating in space right now," the Doctor said gently.

"Right," she said shakily. "Um, if you don't mind, I think I'm gonna take a time-out right now." Giving into the stress and shock of the day, she let go of her consciousness and went limp in the Doctor's arms.

xXx

Lyssa slowly swam back to reality. She carefully moved her hands across the sheets covering her body, and felt something heavy encasing her left hand. Struggling to open her eyes, she felt someone take her hand, and a comforting warmth slowly spread from the point of contact. She managed to open her eyes at last, but had to immediately shut them after the lights overhead nearly blinded her. They were immediately dimmed, and she muttered, "Thanks," out of habit. Managing to keep her eyes open this time, she looked over and saw the Doctor holding her hand. Her hand with a cast on it.

"Why, why is there a cast on my hand?" she asked groggily, confused.

He looked down at her hand. "Oh! Right! Um, well, you had three broken bones in your hand. I used a bone knitter on them, but it will still need to set for a few days before it can completely heal, and then we can take the cast off, but then -"

"Doctor," Lyssa interrupted him. He shut up immediately. "Is, is this all real? Am I really in the TARDIS? I'm not dreaming?"

Instead of responding, the Doctor reached over and pinched her arm. "Ow!" she cried, rubbing the sore spot. "What was that for?"

"Did that feel real?" he asked her simply.

"Yes!" She scowled, still rubbing her arm.

He smiled. "Then I'd say that that means that you're awake. Also, scans show that, your hand aside, you're as fit as a fiddle. So, I could give you a tour of the TARDIS, if you like?" he offered.

Lyssa studied him for a minute. "Sure. I think I'd like to see if the TARDIS really is bigger on the inside."

He grinned and offered her his hand. "Lyssa Mae Devons, you have no idea."

A/N: So this will be my first Doctor Who story ever, but I'm excited to see where it goes. Updates should come every Sunday, usually later in the day as I'm an awful procrastinator. :P

Feel free to offer constructive criticism, I know I'm not the best writer in the world. :/ Encouraging reviews are always welcome! :)

I'll be working with 9-12 for the most part, as well as a few 8th/War Doctor shots, but I will only be writing through the Season 9 Christmas Special. Any and everything written after that will all be written by me, and anything in BBC season 10 and after will not be included, nor considered canon in this story.

Inspired by 'Jumping Through Time' by AnaDona

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! :)

General Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, but Lyssa is all mine.