Well hello, hello! You probably weren't expecting this. This one came to me just now as a random idea. I couldn't find a way to work into my other fic, The Last Of The Time Ladies, but I couldn't pass it up, either. So consider this a pilot. LOTTL still has priority, never fear, but I wanted to throw this out there. See what people thought.

It's going to be an interesting challenge for me, because I don't know Ten nearly as well as I know Eleven or Amy. Steep learning curve and all that.

As with LOTTL, this will turn into an AU and a character/relationship study between the Doctor and Amy. Except it's the Tenth Doctor. Not the Eleventh.

Settings – Amy's still very much learning the TARDIS ropes, definitely pre-Time Of Angels. Arcs – no Silence, this is an AU. Still too hard for me, sorry.

Also as with LOTTL, italics are private thoughts. Should be obvious from context, though.

Finally, the usuals. Don't own Doctor Who or the characters, the BBC does. Reviewers get free tickets to the sixth circle of heaven etc. etc.

Let's get on with it.

TEMPORAL DISCONTINUITIES

Amy Pond has just started travelling with the Doctor - but a Doctor who has never met her, a Doctor who never abandoned her for fourteen years and a Doctor who is running from a death he doesn't know already happened. Can Amy Pond bring the Tenth Doctor back to his senses? And can she really trust and forgive a man who caused such pain for her, when he doesn't even know it happened?

Chapter 1. Rewind

"Thigio? What kind of planet name is that?"

"Actually, that's just the literal, symbol-for-symbol translation. Phonetically, it's rather different," the Doctor remarked brightly, bounding around the console as he tilted levers and flicked switches this way and that.

"So how's it pronounced then?" Amy Pond replied, a quirk in the corner of her lip.

"Tee-zyer would be the most accurate."

Amy furrowed her brow, mild astonishment and bemusement lining her grass-green irises. "Seriously? Why's it got a 'g' in the middle, then?"

"Good question. I believe someone buggered up the official trans-phonetic manual one day when transcribing into English script, mixed up the 'zee' and 'gee' noises."

Amy glanced at him, smirking slightly. "Someone, eh? Wonder who."

"No idea what you're talking about," the Doctor replied airily, placing a broad palm on the silver flight lever and throwing it downwards. The TARDIS lurched violently, throwing Amy off-balance. A peal of laughter escaped her lips as she righted herself – she could have grabbed on to something to hold herself upright, but where was the fun in that?

And these last two weeks have sure as hell been fun.

In the twelve years that he'd vanished, Amelia Pond had waited and waited patiently for the Doctor, making dolls, cartoons and toys about her "Raggedy Doctor", and even forcing her future-boyfriend Rory to dress up as him. Half the village thought she was completely bonkers, but so what? Amy had never been one to take the straight and narrow path. Hence her job, which raised more than a few eyebrows in the little village, especially when coupled with her rivers of thick, lustrous crimson hair, her vibrant, entrancing emerald eyes and pale legs that seemed to just go on and on.

Meanwhile, she waited. As she grew up, she became sharper, smarter, more savvy, and she learned how to play with people's thoughts the way she wanted to. So whilst everyone thought she had written off the Raggedy Doctor as just an imaginary friend, she'd never given up. Not really. Not in the deepest pockets of her heart.

Then, one bright, sunny day, he'd come back... he'd come back, twelve years later than he promised. And boy did she let him know he was late, by means of a cricket bat and few choice intimidating glares. Her fury at him overrode her better sense, and she'd pushed him away, refusing to acknowledge that he really was the mad alien who had eaten fish custard in her kitchen when she was a little girl. He quickly fixed that, and they proceeded to save Leadworth and Rory from a shape-shifting inter-dimensional fugitive alien who was being chased by a fleet of giant eyeball-starfish spaceships. Who in turn were threatening to burn the whole planet.

It was everything she'd hoped for and more. The world she'd dreamed about, that promise of something better, more exciting, it was all true. The world of her Raggedy Doctor was real.

And then he vanished again. Just like that. Not a single word of thanks, or a goodbye, or a promise to be back.

To say the last two years had been tough was an understatement. Now she and everyone else knew he was real, that she'd not been lying all those years ago about what had really destroyed the shed in her backyard. But he'd just run off again without a word, just like that. She had genuinely believed he was never coming back this time. The fact he was real only seemed to reinforce that.

She moved on. She'd even gotten engaged to Rory. But even the night before her wedding, it all felt strange, weird, hollow. As if this wasn't the life she wanted to be living, the life she needed to be living. On the night before her wedding, as she slept, her dreams hadn't turned to what was supposed to be the best day of her life, mere hours away, but to a crisp, sunny morning in Leadworth, twelve years beforehand, as she sat perched on a suitcase, waiting...

...and then she'd heard it. That wheezing, whirring noise. She'd heard it only twice, but that had been enough to sear it into her memory forever. It sliced through the dream, yanking her back to consciousness.

She'd shot bolt upright and raced to the window, gazing outside to see a deep blue box, labelled "Police Box", sitting on her lawn. The time for waiting had ended at last.

Now, she looked at the man she'd waited for bounding about the console panels, twirling incessantly, a ball of irrepressible energy, youthful vigour exuding from every pore despite his immense age. Wish I could look that good at nine hundred and seven, she mused. One thing she hadn't expected upon his return – he looked rather smashing. How could she not look when he'd shamelessly began to strip down right in front of her? The bowtie doesn't help, though.

She continued to gaze at the man, a thoughtful furrow between her eyes. Had this really been worth fourteen years of waiting? Was this really worth running away from her wedding night? She didn't quite know the answer, but if the last two weeks were anything to by, she'd have one pretty soon.

"Aaaand landed! Come along, Pond!" The Doctor threw another lever, causing the TARDIS to lurch again, and took her by the hand, the pair dancing out of the TARDIS and into the alluring glow of an alien sun, the promise of an adventure hidden between the golden rays of light.

"Erm, Doctor?"

The Doctor was couching down, inspecting a perfectly manicured lawn. "Yes, Pond?" he asked distractedly.

"Can I go back and get a jumper or something? It's freezing." They had walked ten minutes from the TARDIS, into the lawns of what appeared to be a large high-tech industrial facility of some kind, a sprawling complex of glittering steel buildings topped with chimneys emitting wisps of blue-grey smoke. Bizarrely, the entire complex appeared devoid of people. Or aliens.

"Your fault for wearing that skirt, surely. I'm surprised your knees haven't fallen off already."

She rolled her eyes. "Is that a yes, Doctor?"

"No."

Her mouth fell open in indignation and she gave the Time Lord her finest death glare.

"What do you mean, no?"

"No, you can't go back to the TARDIS," he replied sharply. He paused, before breaking into a smirk. "Because I've already one here." He reached into his tweed jacket and fished out her usual black velvet-leather jacket from within. She shook her head as he tossed the piece of clothing her way.

"Show off."

"Yeah, a bit." He flashed a grin at her before turning his attention back to the cropped grass. "So... this grass, eh. What do you think?"

"Well, it's green... and, erm, grassy. Really, really green, actually, looks in the bloom of health."

"Very good," he replied, nodding in the manner of a satisfied schoolteacher after his favourite pupil had once again given the correct answer. "In the bloom of health. Magnificent, manicured lawn. Could dig it up and plant it at a show, win a prize."

"Prizes for lawns?" Amy eyebrows had shot into her eyeline.

"Absolutely. Fourteen different planets, you could win a fortune for having a green, manicured lawn. Bit of a status symbol in the K14 cluster, they all love their lawns. Once dropped by on a lawn-testing competition, some of the-"

"Right. I get the picture." Amy interjected. The Doctor seemed somewhat put out by having his dissertation interrupted mid-sentence, but he quickly returned to his previous thoughtful contemplation of the lawn in front of them. "So what's so special about this one?"

"It's mid-winter, yet this lawn looks as if it's been taken from the height of spring. And it looks as if it were cut yesterday, but-" he suddenly bent down, sniffing the evenly-cut grass. "-it hasn't been mown in a good month or so."

"So... something's intefering with its growth? Maybe that something also took away all the people," she suggested, a moment of inspiration bursting into life within her.

The Doctor turned to look at the Scottish redhead, impressed. "Not bad. Not bad at all,"

"I try," she replied with just the slightest hint of smugness. "So we're gonna find out what's up now?"

"Pond, you read my mind," he told her, a sparkle in his eyes, as they began to move towards the complex.

The building was darkened, only the dull emergency exit lighting breaking the blackness of its interior. Aside from an almost inaudible mechanical whirring, it was also dead quiet, until a clicking noise, soft but carrying throughout the cavernous expanse, pierced the silence.

"So this is it? The thing's in here?" Amy whispered, somewhat creeped out by the imposing darkness and cold, artificially dry air of the building's interior.

"Yes, this is it," the Doctor replied brightly, having no such qualms.

"So what are we looking for?"

"A big black box of some kind, with lots of tubes and wires and stuff hanging off it."

"So descriptive," she remarked dryly.

"Always with the sarcasm, Pond?"

She grinned, punching him lightly on the arm. "Fourteen years, mister. I have a right to be cynical."

"I told you, it was an accident! The engines were phasing."

"Yeah, yeah. So how are we meant to find a big black box without any lights? Everything's black as far as I can see."

The Doctor flicked out his sonic screwdriver, gripping the end. He raised it above his head, directing it at the ceiling, and activated it. The familiar buzzing noise rent the air.

At once, lights burst into life up and down the room, bathing the interior in harsh white light. The Doctor lowered his sonic, smirking. "Better?"

She rolled her eyes again. "Much, thanks. Right. So, big black box, yeah?"

"Yeah. Just like that one," he told her, pointing to what was indeed a big black box, wires trailing from a panel of glittering green lights on its side, tubes leading in all directions from its top. They jogged over to it, inspecting.

"So what it is?"

"Temporal regulator. Something big, nasty happened here," he muttered, running his sonic over the panel in butterfly patterns. After a few circuits, he flicked his wrist, inspecting the reading. "Hmm. Big and nasty indeed."

"Why, what is it?"

He rested the sonic on his mouth thoughtfully. "So I assume you've noticed that all the people are missing from around here."

She groaned. "Duh. I kind of told you that I'd noticed about five minutes ago."

"Right, sorry. Well, it looks like what's happened is that the localised space-time field controller in this facility went into an uncontrolled feedback loop, causing a planetwide temporal discontinuity."

Amy blinked. "Right," she began slowly. "Now, in English?"

He tapped her on the forehead with the sonic in a slightly reproving manner. "Well, imagine a nice big flat piece of ground. Then imagine a great big crack opens up, deep enough for people to fall into. A canyon, even."

She nodded. "OK."

"Well, it's nothing like that," he told her. "But you can think it about it that way if it helps."

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "So... we're basically talking about a planet that... fell out of time?"

"Basically, yeah."

"So what happened to all the people?"

"Ah, well, people are temporally complex events, the reactive parts of time. So when the discontinuity occurred, they became delocalised."

"Delocalised?" That doesn't sound good at all...

"The discontinuity shifted the planet into a completely new but frozen time stream. Time simply doesn't pass on the surface of this planet, which is why the air feels like it's winter but the grass is still stuck in spring. Unfortunately, people are a bit too big to drag into a completely new time stream like that, so they got... stuck."

"Stuck? Stuck where?"

"In between," he said simply.

The colour drained from Amy's face. "So you're saying... they're all dead?"

"Oh good heavens, no. They're just stuck between time-streams, that's all, locked in a corridor between worlds. All we have to do is open the doors by reversing the feedback loop and everything will be back to normal again."

"Right." The answer didn't completely reassure her, as this 'delocalisation' business still sounded highly unpleasant. "So that's what we're here to do, yeah?"

"Got it in one, Pond."

They moved deeper into the facility, passing more black temporal regulator cubes along the way. The network of pipes became denser, and the harsh industrial lighting of the large rooms gave to claustrophobic corridors, lit by dull, ominous red light.

These corridors are becoming a pattern, Amy mused to herself as the crouched to squeeze under a pipe that ran across the corridor at chest height.

They moved swiftly, knowing beforehand that there was no security that they'd need to deal with. No, they were all trapped between worlds, in the void between timestreams. A shiver ran down Amy's spine at the thought. I wonder what it feels like, being delocalised. She supposed that given they were stuck in a 'space' where time didn't exist, they probably wouldn't feel anything. They probably didn't even know what had happened. She hoped, anyway. For their sake.

Twenty minutes later, they came up to a grey wooden door. The Doctor stepped up in front of it, running it over with the sonic. "So this is it," he told her once he'd completed the scan. "The feedback loop is coming from here." He beckoned Amy over and she waited next to the door expectantly. He buzzed the sonic over the handly, and a clicking confirmed to him that the door had unlocked. He placed his hand on the handle, but didn't open it. Instead, he met the human girl's eyes, a serious, meaningful expression suddenly written on his face.

"Pond, listen to me carefully. There's a very high chance that there are pockets of raw time energy around the place. Do not get anywhere near them."

"Why, what about them?"

"Raw time energy hates processed time energy like you and me. Polar opposites. They cancel each other out."

Amy didn't like the sound of that at all. "And so..."

"And so if you get too close to a pool of time energy, it will begin to erase parts of your timeline. In fact, there is a high chance that it will erase your entire timeline."

Amy let her mouth fall open in shock. "So I'll... I'll..."

"You will never have existed. You will never have been born at all."

She took a few seconds to process this information before breaking into a smile. "Well, that's one of the more unique ways of getting lopped off, eh? But what about you? Does being a Time Lord give you some sort of protection?"

He smiled warmly at her, appreciative of her bravado and her perceptiveness. "A bit, yeah. Still don't want to get too close to it, but I'd say the erasure would be limited to the last month or so."

She made a scoffing noise. "That's nothing. What's a month against nine centuries?"

Unexpectedly, his smile fell. "A lot can happen in a month, Amelia Pond," he murmured. He twisted the handle and swung the door open.

The interior looked roughly the same as the corridor outside – but with the large exception that nothing seemed to be straight. Rather, everything seemed to curve inwards towards the centre of the room.

"Spatial distortion from the feedback event," he told her pre-emptively just as she opened her mouth to ask about the weird geometry of the room. "Space is highly curved in here because of it. Nothing to worry about. Well, it is something to worry about because it's evidence of the feedback loop, but it's nothing to worry about on its own."

"Right," Amy said slowly. "So what now?"

"Now I go over here and do my fixing thing." And he did, striding over to a panel and beginning to twiddle various knobs, throwing levers seemingly at random.

"And me?"

"You stand there and look impressed."

She rolled her eyes and plopped herself down on a chair, waiting patiently. She tried not to think about the fact that someone had probably been sitting on it before the 'feedback event'.

After a few minutes, however, her patience ran dry and she stood, moving to explore the room. She began to explore the room, whilst keeping in mind the Doctor's warning about the raw time energy. A twinge of concern reminded her that he hadn't actually told her what raw time energy looked like, but she figured that it was one of those things that you could identify as soon as you saw it.

She moved around a large metal cage, inspecting its twisted surface. Its square grid pattern had been contorted into a seemingly random array of blobs and vague diamond shapes. She ran her fingers over the grid, fascinated by the effect the feedback event had had on it. As her fingers moved below her eyeline, something caught in the corner of her eye.

A little gleam of white light.

She frowned and turned, seeing the thin white light streaming from behind a steel pillar.

That looks sorta familiar...

The Doctor turned the last knob in the series up to the maximum, and readied his hands on the final lever. With a grunt, he pulled the lever as far down as it would go. A humming noise confirmed he'd succeded, and he broke into a triumphant smile. "All done!" He exclaimed. "Now just a few seconds and everything should be back to normal, Pond... Pond?" He looked around. There was no sign of the fiery-tongued ginger. He moved from behind the panel, frowning. Where's she gone off to?

"Doctor, come look at this," he heard a Scottish-accented lilt from somewhere in the distance.

He sighed in relief. "Couldn't you wait a few minutes, Amy?"

"I don't like sitting and watching whilst you do stuff, Doctor," he heard her call out. "Now come over here, there's something I want to show you." He shook her head and moved in the direction of her voice. He passed the distorted metal grille and rounded a corner where he knew Amy was standing on the other side of.

"Amy, if it's another 'weird-looking pipe', I'm going to-" He stopped mid-sentence with a gasp, freezing instantly as he took the sight before him.

Amy couldn't miss his reaction. "Weird, huh? Looks exactly like the crack in my bedroom wall when I was seven."

"Amy," he told her quietly, "Get back."

She frowned. "Why, what's so bad about it? Is some alien going to come out the other side again?"

"Get back, Amy. Now!" Thin white streamers had already begun to wind its way out of the pool of white light on the floor, wrapping themselves around the girl's feet. Amy finally noticed the potential danger, and staggered back into a corner as the streamers began to snake outwards from the pool of time energy at increasing speed.

"Doctor, what the hell is that?"

"Raw time energy," the Doctor told her, moving slowly towards the corner where she had pinned herself into, taking care to avoid the white tendrils working their way from the pool of time energy. "Amy, walk slowly towards me."

Her eyes darted left and right, but she couldn't see any escape. She shook her head so quickly her face seemed to blur. "I can't. I can't get out."

"You can, Amy. Just believe and you can. But you have to do it now."

She bit her lip, her face pale. "Just go, Doctor. Save yourself and leave me." She told him, her voice cracking.

"Amy, if you stay there, you will be erased from time. You will never have existed at all!" His voice had risen, pleading with his friend to make the jump and save herself.

She smiled wanly at him. "I'm just a little human girl. There are plenty of me running around, but only one of you. Just go. Save yourself."

He shook his head and moved his eyes over the situation, taking in all the angles and distances, sizing up his options. Nothing for it. Let's see if those long jump lessons were worth the effort. "Amy Pond, you are magnificent."

She closed her eyes and leaned back on the wall, readying herself for the end. "I understand. You have to leave me."

"No, Amelia, I am never leaving you." He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with oxygen, and took one, two long strides forward before launching himself into the air with a great "Ally-oop!"

He sailed right over the pool of expanding white, landing just past one of the tendrils snaking its way randomly towards the human girl. "See?" He told her, pulling her into a quick embrace.

"Right," she muttered into his shoulder, a relieved grin on his face. "And now how are we gonna get out?"

"Simple. Same way. There should be enough space to-"

Amy never found out what there was enough space for, however, for at that exact moment a thunderclap rent the air around them, deafening both, and a shuddering tremor raced through the ground as the feedback loop disintegrated and the articially frozen timeline merged with the greater time-stream. Men, women and children, plucked from reality by the temporal event, returned precisely where they were, completely oblivious to the extraordinary events which had occurred in their absence.

The tremor, however, came at the worst possible moment for Amy and the Doctor, still locked in a tight embrace, as they were knocked off balance, falling towards the ground... and the tendrils of time energy, the after-effects of the feedback loop still persisting after its disintegration.

The Doctor, with his enhanced Time Lord reflexes, knew instantly what had happened... and what was about to happen when they hit the floor as they fell through the air. All thoughts, schemes and memories vanished from his consciousness, replaced by a single, rigid purpose.

Save Amy.

With every ounce of strength in his body, he twisted in mid air and heaved his arms upwards, letting go of the human as he fell. He watched her sail through the air as he crashed, alone, to the floor. She landed with a thud, skidding across the surface and slamming against a metal pipe. He smiled. She's safe.

A tingling sensation emerged in his fingertips, and his smile faltered. He'd succeeded in saving her, but there was a cost to be paid...

Amy Pond had absolutely no clue what had just happened. One moment she was in the Doctor's arms. The next she was in the middle of an earthquake. Then she was flying through the air. Then she was curled up against a metal pipe, feeling as if someone had driven over her with a steamroller.

She groaned, unfolding herself. "Doctor, in future, if you want to throw me around, can you tell me first?" No answer. "Doctor?" She rolled over, and saw the Doctor lying peacefully on the floor... his right arm bathed in a brilliant white light. Oh no. No no no. "Doctor!" She screamed, scrambling on all fours towards him, her own pain forgotten.

He heard her moving towards him and sat up suddenly, moving rapidly away, dragging his arm, encased in white light, along the floor. "No, Amy! Stay back! The time energy hasn't begun reacting yet. It could still pass to you."

She stopped, doing as she was told. "So it's safe? It won't react?" She asked him, a sudden hope flaring within her

He smiled gently at her. A sad smile. Full of finality... of closure. "I'm afraid not. In a few seconds it will merge with my time-stream and start rewinding it."

"But you said – you said you were protected. That it would only wipe the last month." She didn't mean to shout, but she couldn't help it. He can't be erased... he can't, he can't, he can't...

"Absolutely right, Pond. But that means I won't have met you. It was only two weeks ago for me. When I... when I return, I won't know you."

She bit her lip, relief tempered by sadness washing through her. "But you'll still be the same man, right? You'll still be the Doctor?"

He closed his eyes, his brow furrowed, as the white encasing on his arm began to spread to his torso. "Yes... and no."

She stared at him, uncomprehending. "What do you mean?"

"There's no time to explain. I'll still be me, but a past me. A different me. When he comes, he'll understand."

Amy sure didn't didn't understand right now. She opened her mouth to demand an explanation, seek a way of help, but he cut her off.

"No time, Pond. Listen, now." He paused as the white casing made its way down his torso and to his legs. Soon. "I promised I'd be back in five minutes for you. I ended up coming for you fourteen years later,"

She waved him off, an unwanted tear falling down her cheek. She brushed it away furiously. "Shut up. It was worth it."

He smiled. "I hope it was. Ah, Amelia Pond. The girl who waited for me. I'm sorry I was only able to give you two weeks of time and space."

"But – but I thought-"

"Quiet, Pond. You'll continue travelling, don't worry. You'll have the most wonderful, incredible, exciting adventures with the Doctor. But I won't see it. But you'll be amazing for me, won't you, Amelia? Promise me that you'll be amazing."

She nodded as quickly as she could. "Of course I will."

He smiled, a final, warm smile. His cerulean-blue eyes locked with hers for the last time. "Goodbye, Amelia Pond," he whispered, as the time energy took him at last.

A dazzling brightness erupted from him, obscuring him from sight. Amy had to cover her eyes with her hand, lest she ended up blinded from the star-bright light before her.

Then it was gone, evaporating from her sight, leaving the room in dull, dark red light just as it had before.

She uncovered her eyes, and saw a man lying before her. Wearing the same tweed jacket. The same ridiculous blue bowtie. But the man within was very, very different.

He was... older. Close to ten years older by her estimation, given the lines in his face. Yet his face seemed to hold a youthful exuberance already, a boyish, ageless quality to it. She studied his chin, rounder, less angular than that of his predecessor's. His hair was chocolate brown, a few shades darker than her Raggedy Doctor's.

His eyes flew upon, hazel, deep, shot with intelligence and age, but maintaining a energetic sparkle. The man sat up, evidently not used to his surroundings as he craned his head around, taking the low metal ceiling and the dull red light.

"Well, that's rather interesting," the man spoke, his voice coloured by a sharp Estuary accent. "Didn't expect to wake up here," he muttered, clearly talking to himself. He levelled his eyes and finally caught sight of Amy at last, the redhead still staring at him in undisguised shock.

"Oooh!" He said in a mildly embarrassed tone, his eyes widening. "Sorry about not noticing you there. Hello. I'm the Doctor."

So what did you think? I probably won't come back to this for a while whilst I work on LOTTL, but I'll bring it forward if peeps are interested.